An Unfamiliar Degree
by Your-Protector
Summary: Ruby Sullivan seems to be losing her mind. Her family is driving her crazy, that is. And winter break in an isolated cottage in the Northeast isn't going to help. When her brother Charlie sees something in the forest Ruby can't, she embarks on an adventure to recover the childhood she never had, and find love that was never meant to be hers. Jack FrostxOC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello! I just saw Rise of the Guardians like, three hours ago and couldn't help but think of a story! This is my first time writing a fanfiction so go easy on me, I don't know how this works very well. Anyways, I hope you enjoy and sorry if this has been done before, I might not be as creative as I thought I was *shrugs*. Let me know if you like it :)**

* * *

The Sullivan family had only arrived at their winter cottage in Massachusetts five minutes ago and Ruby was already out the door.

"I'll be a while don't wait up for me!" she yelled before slamming the screen door.

"Wait!" her mother screamed running after her.

Ruby stopped and looked back at the woman. Her mother's face was melancholy, and longing. "What is it mother? I want to take pictures."

"You'll be cold-"her mother started.

Ruby wore her father's old worn beige north face fleece that was long enough to reach her knees, her oldest pair of dark denim jeans and rubber boots to go trudging through the snow. Her precious Canon camera was around her neck. "I'm fine." She turned towards the woods that flanked the cottage from the left.

"At least wear a scarf!" cried her mother.

She looked in her mother's direction, scowling. "Are you serious? You're smothering me."

Her mother disappeared inside and reappeared with a red knitted scarf, "We don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose!" she said smiling.

Ruby rolled her eyes; "Goodbye!" she announced prying herself from her mother's grip.

"Ruby?" her mother said once she was halfway across the driveway.

"WHAT NOW?!" She almost screamed.

"Could you please take your brother with you?"

Ruby let out a cry of frustration before leaving into the woods, her five year old brother, Charlie, chatting away beside her.

* * *

"…And then I told Simon that he couldn't play baseball with me and Fred because he likes Darla, and I like Darla. So Simon told his mom that I was being mean to him! What a snitch! You wouldn't believe how annoying he is Ruby!"

"Oh I can imagine." Ruby mumbled, her focus was on her camera.

Ruby loved taking pictures. She had loved it ever since her father had taken her to see Apollo 13 in the cinema. Ruby had become infatuated with little things that were so amazing, leaves, trees, the sky, nature, everything around her, especially the moon. And so, on her fourteenth Christmas she received a nice camera, one that took high definition pictures and captured every element of what Ruby wanted to see. The sun's reflection painted onto the fresh fallen snow, or the cloud formation in the sky, or how big the moon had looked that night; Ruby could capture it all, and remember forever.

Everyone ridiculed Ruby for having such an unusual obsession, but Ruby didn't care. As long as she could see the beauty in nature, the hidden beauty that was overlooked by everyone else, and look at it until the end of time

And so she had brought her camera on her family's trip to Massachusetts despite her parent's reluctance. Ruby was sick of Florida, she was sick of school, and the sun every day, all the green, finally she could capture nature at its weakest, most beautiful state, winter.

Ruby had wanted to go on the walk alone, because not only was Charlie way too noisy, she liked being alone. She did things better alone. And after a three hour drive from the airport in a crammed car with her family, alone is what she needed.

"…I don't think Darla likes me, I called her a booger last year and she always sticks her tongue out at me when she sees me."

"That's unfortunate." Ruby said disregarding him. She took a picture of a fallen leave in the untouched freshly fallen snow.

"Why are you so mean to mom, Ruby?" Charlie asked.

"You'll understand when you're sixteen, like me." She explained as they walked further into the woods.

"Will I take pictures like you when I'm older too?" He asked, his brown eyes shining with curiosity.

"Who knows? It's up to you to find what you like and stick with it." She said looking at the sky. The sky was overcast, but you could just barely see the sun, it was beginning to set, and she wasn't ready to head back yet.

"Why do you like taking pictures of everything?"

Ruby smiled at her brother, Charlie was seventy five percent annoying, but there was still that other twenty five percent that was alright. "Because everything is so pretty."

Charlie looked around and the wind shook the trees, the forest moved in unison and blew a cold breeze through Ruby's hair. She breathed in the fresh scent of pine and snow mixing, the perfect combination. Snowflakes began to trickle down from the clouds covering the sky.

"Who's that?" Charlie asked pointing at a small snow bank a little ways ahead of them.

Ruby squinted, but only saw snow. "What do you mean 'who' there's no one there."

"No that boy right there!" Charlie yelled pointing. "Hey over here!" he yelled, waving in the snows direction.

"Shut up Charlie, we probably aren't allowed to be in these woods anyways. Stop acting like a crazy idiot." She turned around and began to walk back.

"I'm telling mom you said that!" He gasped and ran ahead. "And I'm telling her about that guy I saw!"

Ruby rolled her eyes. Kids could be so annoying. She decided she would look at her pictures after dinner.

* * *

Jack hadn't expected work as a guardian to be so hard. He had to make sure it snowed everywhere it was supposed to snow at the designated time of the year? He would much rather fight Pitch again. But North had convinced him that the work was satisfying, and that he was doing good.

But all the responsibilities? Flying back and forth all over the world was tiring, and Jack didn't like commitment all that much.

He settled down in the snow of a town he had practically frozen over in the last hour when he heard voices.

"…I don't think Darla likes me, I called her a booger last year and she always sticks her tongue out at me when she sees me." Snippets of a small boy's conversation flew into his ear.

The voice of an older girl said bored, "That's unfortunate."

Jack laughed and threw his staff next to him in the snow; he lied down in the snow and listened quietly to the rustling of the branches.

"Why are you so mean to mom, Ruby?" he heard the little boy ask.

Ah. So the girl is a brat. And her name is Ruby? Jack thought to himself. Then he wondered why he had even thought about it in the first place, it wasn't his place to care about that.

"You'll understand when you're sixteen, like me." He heard her reply slightly annoyed.

"Will I take pictures like you when I'm older too?" The boy asked.

Jack perked up his ears; technically he was here first, so he wasn't eavesdropping. He heard her sigh slightly, "Who knows? It's up to you to find what you like and stick with it." She said wistfully, Jack thought she sounded a bit sad. But maybe it was just him being strange.

"Why do you take pictures of everything?" the boy chirped up again, obviously not noticing the girl's tone.

"Because everything is so pretty."

And at first Jack thought he had heard wrong. Because he had never come across a teenager her age that would even look outside and now here was a perfectly good example of why North was right. That he really should stick to making snow, and winter.

He peeked over the edge of the snow to look at the pair. The little boy had unkempt light brown hair with brown eyes looked in every which ways curiously. He really wasn't very tall and he looked like he could be about five years old. He looked at his sister as if she was a goddess, and then Jack looked at her and understood why.

The girl was tall, not as tall as Jack, but pretty tall nonetheless. Waves of long, chocolate brown tresses whipped around her in the cool winter wind. She was pale, and her cheeks were rosy, probably from the cold. She seemed to be shivering, but didn't act like it was bothering her. She held a camera in her right hand; her left hand was peeling bark off a birch tree. And right at that moment all Jack could think about was that he felt like he had just slipped on a flight of stairs and hit his head, he was dizzy, and she was stunning.

Another bout of wind blew snow flurries and pine into the air, he saw her breathe in and smile. The snowflakes landing in her hair and floating on the stray strands that blew around her face.

"Who's that?" her brother asked. Jack turned and saw the little boy pointing at him.

Jack smiled and stood up, grabbing his staff.

The girl turned to look at Jack and their eyes met for a split second, her eyes were a crystal clear blue. In that second he could see everything, and he felt something stir inside him and his heart pace quickened. "What do you mean 'who' there's no one there."

But he could have sworn they'd seen each other for at least a split second. He sighed discontentedly, although there was no reason for him to be disappointed, she was too old to believe in the guardians anyways. And he couldn't believe he was acting this way, thinking about her and such only after just seeing her. What business would he have with a shallow teenage girl?

"No that boy right there!" The boy grabbed her jacket and pointed to Jack. "Hey over here!" he yelled, trying to flag him down.

Jack smiled and winked at the kid before jumping into the wind and being carried somewhere else, he still couldn't shake the dizzy feeling that girl had given him though. And he wondered if he could see her again, he wouldn't admit it to himself but he hoped, actually.

* * *

**Should I continue? I probably will regardless of the feedback *shrugs again* but do please leave me a review or something! :) **

**xoxo -your protector**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm back! Faster than expected too! I wrote a lot last night, so here is the second installment of my first fanfiction! Enjoy! And also thank you for all the feedback on Chapter 1!**

* * *

Jack had returned to the forest subconsciously that night, even though he knew that she wasn't going to be there at that hour, he had a feeling that she was close.

There was a small cabin nearby that was puffing out white smoke from its chimney, a family of three was sitting at the table having dinner contently and his heart sunk.

Upstairs a light was on and he flew closer to get a better look, the girl was sitting on a small bed with a comforter decorated with blue sheep, a laptop on balanced on her knees. He almost laughed at how unfitting it seemed.

She reached for her camera on the nightstand and took a chip out; she plugged it into the computer and waited while it loaded her pictures.

Her eyes roamed around the room and finally her gaze rested on the window. Jack felt as if her vision was digging into him, he almost wanted to scream with frustration, the fact she couldn't see him was going to drive him crazy. He wanted her to see him, and he didn't know why.

She rose from her bed and went to the window, she unlocked and opened it. He floated just out of her reach, but he felt the longing to be close to her for some odd reason.

She looked up at him and for a second he thought she could see him.

"Ruby!" her mother called from below, "This is the last time I'm calling you or else you don't get-!"

"I'm coming!" She shouted rolling her eyes and leaving the room.

She slammed the door behind her and for a second Jack wondered if he should go snooping, and since she couldn't see him and probably never would, he thought 'why not?' and invited himself in.

He looked around, and the room was pretty skimpy. There was a bed, a desk, an armoire, a closet, and that's it. But she had made an effort to make it cozy, there were pictures everywhere. Every inch of wall was covered, the desk, and the armoire had pictures pinned on them too. Plus her computer was probably storing tons of pictures too, Jack thought. The chair at her desk was painted blue with clouds and he had assumed she had done it herself, which was very impressive seeing it wasn't completely hideous.

A scent tickled his nose and it took him a second to realize it was her smell. She smelled like rain, the good kind. Not the warm rain that gets you even hotter on an already hot day, the kind that makes you stay inside and look outside and cuddle up. The nice kind. And that made Jack feel, well, warm.

He drifted out the window and downstairs where the family was dining, he sighed and wished he could remember more about his family.

* * *

"I saw Jack Frost, Ruby! That was the boy I was talking about today that I saw! Mom said it's Jack Frost!" Charlie jumped from his chair when Ruby sat down.

Her eyes wandered to her mother questioningly and her mom gave her a motion that made Ruby wonder if her mom would actually kill her if she ruined Charlie's beliefs.

"Never heard of him." She stated loading her plate with pasta.

"Eat something other than pasta, Ruby." Her mother nagged.

"He controls snow, right dad?" Charlie asked their father, who was seated at the head of the table.

He looked up from his newspaper and pushed up his glasses, "What? Oh. Yeah."

Ruby was ready to throw herself out the window. "What about Boogieman? Do you believe in him Charlie? Maybe he'll visit us tonight…?"

Charlie gave Ruby a look of pure horror and she had to hold her nose to stop laughing. "Ruby! Don't scare your brother like that! You're awful!" her mother whispered as she tried to put salad onto her daughter's plate.

Ruby pushed her mom away, "Mom stop, I'm in a rush. I have to look through my pictures."

The whole family groaned, even her father. "You're not done with that yet Ruby? You're getting kind of carried away with it."

"I love it father, I want to take pictures my whole life."

"We wanted to watch a movie as a family tonight though." Ruby's mother pouted.

"You really should practice your piano piece Ruby, your recital is as soon as we get back." Added her father.

Ruby stared at the ceiling and hoped it would swallow her.

"Yes!" her mom cooed, "I'd love to hear the piece you're working on! What was it? Dancing peach fairies?"

Ruby banged her forehead onto the table and squeezed her eyes shut. Her family was beyond frustrating to be around. "It Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, mom. You know? From the Nutcracker? It's probably one of Tchaikovsky's most famous pieces. And I practiced for three hours before we left, do we even have a piano here?"

"Yes, it's in the living room. Which I don't think you have stepped in once." Her father set down his paper and eyed her sternly. "You're always up in your room with your pictures."

"Will you play for us? Please?" Her mother begged.

"You should have never given up doing ballet last year, you could have finished point and maybe even pursued it as a career. Now all you do with your time is pictures, its starting to impact your grades. I think you have too much time on your hands and you're not using it correctly." Ruby's dad began folding the paper in fourths.

Ruby went rigid; she did not enjoy the path this conversation was beginning to travel down. She wolfed down her food, "I'll run through the piece once and then, if we don't watch Fantasia for the forty thousandth time, I might watch the movie. Okay?"

Her family seemed content with that decision as she went over to the piano; slowly her family trickled in and settled on the couch with their plates. Something that was apparently only allowed sometimes, technically the only time food wasn't allowed to leave the kitchen was if it was Ruby missing a meal to be alone in her room.

She ran through the scales quickly and cracked her knuckles to which Charlie winced and her mother shouted "don't do that!"

Ruby put her hands on the keys and that was it. They traveled on their own, at their own tempo, to the song she was recreating. Whenever she played the song she envisioned the fairies in Fantasia waking up early and making all the flowers and nature dewy. Absolutely beautiful. Although her favorite scene was when the fairies of winter came, and froze everything over. And then it was over, the fairies were done, and so was the piece.

She stood and put her hands on her hips, "Can I go?"

Her mother showered her with compliments about how great she was and began smothering her and hugging her, to which Ruby detested. She squirmed out of her grip just in time to hear Charlie say:

"It's Jack Frost again! There he is! Looking into the window!"

Ruby turned to look out the window, there was a new coat of fresh snow and it was too dark to see anything, "I don't see anyone…"

"How can you not see him?!" Charlie asked perplexed. "Can I go outside and say hi? Mom? Can I?"

Their mother's only weakness was Charlie, and so she agreed. "Your sister has to go out with you though, I don't want you getting into trouble, and don't go far from the house!"

Ruby sighed when she realized she would be dragged into this, "Just let me get my camera." She told Charlie.

* * *

When they got outside, it was a lot colder than it had been before. The wind wasn't as strong though, but the moon was a sliver, the smallest crescent moon Ruby had ever seen. She gasped and immediately took a picture. "Are you seeing this Charlie?! Look at the moon!"

"Yeah yeah it's nothing special." He muttered. "Jack? Where'd you go?"

Ruby continued to take pictures, unaware that Charlie seemed to be talking to himself. When she finally did realize, it was because something had hit her hard in the back. A snowball.

"Charlie!" she screamed. "Oh my god. Oh my god. It's going down my back. ITS FREEZING!" she looked at the boy, who was now laughing on the ground. She smiled wickedly, "Payback time."

She scooped up a pile of snow in her arms and dropped it onto him, making him laugh even harder. "I didn't throw it!" he cried. "It was Jack!"

"Oh yeah?" Ruby asked, throwing another snowball at him. "Where's Jack so I can give him a taste of his own medicine?"

Charlie laughed. "He's right behind you!"

Ruby whirled around and saw nothing. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a snowball was flying at her face. She ducked her head and it hit a tree behind her.

"How did you do that Charlie?" she asked breathlessly kneeling down in the snow next to him.

"I told you, it was Jack, it wasn't me." He said attempting to push the mound of snow off of himself.

"B-but you and I are the only ones out here!" she exclaimed.

Charlie stood. "Jack says to look at the window, and he'll show you he's here."

"W-what? Charlie do you actually- What's going on?"

"C'mon Ruby, don't be a scaredy cat!" Charlie grabbed her arm and tugged her over to the window.

"I really don't see how…"

The window of the house that looked into the living room was completely frosted over, slowly; a picture was being drawn with what seemed like a finger. A box, then a circle, and then Ruby realized it was a camera.

"CH-CHARLIE, PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE-"

"It's Jack Frost! I'm telling you the truth Ruby! Just believe it!"

Ruby squished her eyes shut for a long time, at one point she forgot they were closed. Slowly, she opened them again. Standing before her was a handsome boy her age, with pure white hair and the clearest blue eyes she had ever seen.

Ruby's eyes widened and she was about to scream, but he covered her mouth.

"Usually don't get that reaction, but ok." He laughed.

"Don't mind my sister, she's kind of dumb." Charlie piped up.

"Kind of? It took her this long to realize I was here!" Jack exclaimed.

Charlie laughed.

Ruby moved his hand off her mouth. "But- This-You- This doesn't exist! Stuff like you doesn't exist!"

"Ouch." Jack clutched his chest, acting hurt. "You do know the fact that you can see me means you believe in me."

Ruby stared in awe. "But if you're real... then that means..."

"Yeah Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Sandman, they all exist." he shrugged.

Charlie laughed. "You don't believe in that Ruby?"

"Shut up Charlie, I'm sixteen. It's not possible for that stuff to exist."

"And yet here I am!" Jack waved is staff in the air and snow began to trickle down from the sky.

Ruby crossed her arms and tried to imagine what this meant. This meant that her parents had lied to her about them not existing, but why? She had just assumed they had always put out the eggs during Easter, or they had just addressed the presents under the tree from Santa. This was a lot for her to take in one sitting.

She looked back at the boy standing in front of her. His face was cute, and his eyes were bluer than anything she had ever seen before. He was a couple inches taller than her and was wearing a blue hood. Ruby felt her stomach get butterflies when his gaze met hers, she adverted her eyes quickly.

He stared at her, his blue eyes moving up and down her as if trying to memorize what she looked like.

"What is it? Stop doing that." She snapped.

"Doing what?" he asked innocently.

Charlie laughed, "Ruby, you're weird."

"Whatever. I'm going back inside. You should too Charlie, it's getting late." She looked over to Jack, "Shouldn't you get home too?"

"I just go wherever." He shrugged, "Seems like someone doesn't want to have any fun tonight so I'll have to go find someone else who's willing."

"Jack don't go!" Charlie pouted. "You'll come back right?"

Jack looked at Ruby and smiled. "Duh."

She looked uncertainly at her shoes. "I still think I'm dreaming or something. I haven't believed in stuff like Santa since I was seven."

"So be it. You're dreaming." Jack said. "But let it be known that I'll have the Boogieman personally give you nightmares, we're friends you know." And then he laughed, like it was the best joke ever.

Charlie looked worried. "You won't give me nightmares, right?"

Jack shook his head, "No you're a cool kid Charlie."

Charlie beamed and waved goodbye, "See you tomorrow!" he bounded inside, leaving the door open for Ruby.

"So what should I call you?" he asked.

"Nothing. You won't call me anything." She stated.

"Alright Nothing, I guess I'll see you around then," he said slinging his staff over his shoulder. "Oh by the way, you play piano beautifully. Best I've heard in two hundred years."

Ruby felt herself get goose bumps. "Ok. Thanks."

"You can call me Jack." He grinned, every single one of his teeth sparkled in the moonlight.

"Goodnight Jack," she said shutting the door quickly.

What. Was. That.

* * *

**Ruby is being poopy. She saw him and she still is skeptical about him. I'll write more soon, it's starting to pick up **** Please let me know what you think! Xoxo – your protector**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm kind of in a rush to post this, so I'll make it quick. Sorry if there are any errors, I didn't have a lot of time to go over it. Thank you so much for all the follows, favorites, and reviews! It means so much to me that people are reading and enjoying my story!**

* * *

Ruby woke up the next morning tired and groggy, she would have stayed in bed curled up in her soft warm blankets longer, but the taste of her own breath was making her nauseous.

So she got up and crossed her room to dig clothes out of the closet. She didn't bother changing out of her pajamas; she just threw on a jacket over her shirt. She undid her bun and brushed out her hair before putting it in a high ponytail.

Ruby opened the door to leave her room but saw something out of the corner of her eye, she turned to see one of the window panes frosted over, drawn with a finger was a smiley face.

She walked over to the window and opened it, cold air blasted her and she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up straight. She popped her head out and looked around, he was nowhere in sight.

She wiped the frost off the window and walked down to have breakfast.

* * *

Ruby's mother was playing Frank Sinatra's Christmas CD on the stereo when Ruby walked in. Charlie was decorating the Christmas tree with her and Ruby's father was on the couch reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Which he had been reading since May.

They all turned, "Well look who decided to join the family this morning!" her mother joked as she finished stringing the lights around the tree.

Ruby padded into the kitchen, ignoring her families jarring remarks towards her. She opened the fridge and took out the carton of milk; she uncapped it and took a sip from the carton.

"Use a cup!" she heard her mother shout from the other room and Ruby almost spit it out.

She rummaged through the spoiled food, dinner foods, and other things she wasn't interested in eating. When finally she decided to give up on the fridge.

She went upstairs and took her camera from where it was sitting on her desk.

The car keys were left on a hook next to the door; she grabbed her father's fleece and pulled on her boots over her polka dotted pajama pants.

"And just where do you think you're going young lady?" her father asked sternly.

"I was just going out to town to get some breakfast." Ruby said quickly.

"I don't-"

"Alright, just bring back a new carton of milk!" her mother interrupted.

Ruby slipped out the door before her father could say no.

She started the car and for a second she thought it wouldn't. The old thing probably would give out soon enough though, and then her father would have to give in and buy a new car. Preferably this one would have working air conditioning.

"Gooooood morning!" A voice cooed into her ear.

"HOLY SH-"Ruby almost swerved off the road. She pulled over quickly and the car behind her honked as it passed by. She turned to the passenger's seat and there he was, grinning. "What are you doing here?!" she exclaimed.

"I was bored." He shrugged, "Now let's go!" he pointed towards the town at the bottom of the road.

"No." Ruby said curtly. "Let's get out and leave Charlie's sister alone." She reached over him and opened the door to the passenger's side.

Jack only laughed, "Oh but Nothing, I want to hang out with you." He shut the door. "Just go, it'll be like I'm not even here."

But it wasn't. Every few seconds he would freeze over the windows and Ruby wouldn't be able to see the road. Which he thought was funny, Ruby wasn't very happy. And for the whole car ride, she felt his gaze on her.

Finally she parked outside a small café, "Well it was fun having you Jack, but this is where we part."

She stepped out of the car and so did he. When she entered the café, he followed her.

"What are you doing? Stop following me!" Ruby whispered as she got in line.

Jack pouted, "Hey, maybe I want a-"he paused and read the menu. "Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino too." He said defensively.

"Do you even know what that is?" she asked blankly.

"Yeah it's the drink with the stuff in it with the peppermint." He explained.

She gave him a look and he grinned. "Just don't talk to me; I don't want to look like I'm schizophrenic or something."

After Ruby ordered her latte and a piece of pumpkin bread, she sat down at a small table in the back. He followed suit and sat across from her.

"I thought you wanted a drink?" she mocked.

"You know, the service here is terrible, they completely disregarded me. So rude, I hope you didn't give them a tip." He huffed.

Ruby laughed and for once, smiled at him. He stopped and stared at the marvel, wondering if he would ever see her smiling again. "What?"

"This is the first time I've seen you smile." He explained. "It's very pretty."

She paused and felt her face get hot. "You just haven't gotten to know me, I smile…. Sometimes."

He laughed. "You should smile more! There's plenty to smile about."

She took a sip of her coffee and raised her eyebrows. "Oh? Like the fact that I couldn't see you? You and Charlie certainly seemed to think that was quite the laugh last night."

"Come on." He leaned back in his chair. "I threw a snowball at you from the opposite direction of where he was standing and you still thought it was him."

"It was late." She defended, taking a bite of the bread.

"So what is coffee?" Jack asked turning the cup around in his hands, "Like what does it taste like?"

"You've never had coffee?!" Ruby asked astonished. "How long have you been around?"

"Like three hundred years…" he mumbled.

"Try it now." She held out the latte.

He took it tentatively from her. "But does it taste bad…?"

"Just drink it!"

He took a small sip and was immediately repulsed. "Yuck! You like this?"

"You don't?" she said in awe.

"It's so bitter!" he passed it back. "I don't think I've ever tasted something that bad."

"Wow. Calm yourself, I guess it's an 'either you like it or you don't thing' but at least you tried it."

"Ok what about that?" he pointed to her pumpkin bread. "Orange bread doesn't look too appetizing."

"No, this is good. Everyone likes this." She pulled off a piece. "Here"

He popped it into his mouth and immediately pulled a face.

"You're crazy." She shook her head.

"People actually enjoy this kind of stuff?!" he swallowed it and made a face.

"What a drama queen." She rolled her eyes. "Give it a chance."

"King." He corrected. "And it's not my fault you like gross food."

She furrowed her eyebrows, "Its an acquired taste, that's all."

Ruby was about to get up but a teenage boy around her age strolled up to the table. "Hey, my name's Max." he grinned. "What's your name?"

"Ruby." She said bluntly, she really had no interest.

Max sat down right on top of Jack, making Ruby snicker. He shot her a glare as Max continued. "That's pretty, did you just move here?"

Ruby looked at Jack who was staring at the boy menacingly. "Uh, no my family is just here for winter break, we own a cabin up on the hill." She pointed in the direction of the hill.

"Oh, well we should totally hang out sometime. Here's my number," he handed her a practically illegible ten digit number written on a napkin. "I guess I'll see you soon, Ruby."

He got up and winked as he walked away. "Gross." Jack whined as he brushed himself off.

Ruby let out the laugh she had been holding in and began collecting her things. She crumpled up the napkin Max had given her and threw it away with her empty coffee cup.

"You just threw away his number." He pointed out.

"We both know all he wants is some action he doesn't really care about me." Ruby said rolling her eyes. "He's super scummy anyway, just look at him."

Max was sitting at a table with a group of friends with his hands down his pants. "Oh." Was all Jack could muster. "Well at least you didn't have to deal with it later." He said optimistically.

"I'm used to it," she brushed it off.

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

She hopped into the car. "Well guys at my school always jokingly are asking me out on dates, everyone thinks just because I don't ever talk to anyone must mean I'm a charity case on their part. Like if I'm just sitting in class someone will try and spark up a conversation with me because they feel bad that I don't have any friends." She sighed. "But that doesn't bother me, what bothers me is that people feel above me because of it. And whenever they do something like ask me out, I always know it's either a joke or they feel obliged." She paused. "Wait. Why am I telling you this, I met you last night and I don't even know you."

Jack gave a melancholy smile. "Well for starters, I'm Jack Frost. I can control the winter weather and make snow and stuff. I don't really like doing my job though, I'd rather have fun. I just kind of drift around and do whatever." He reclined the passenger seat and put his feet up. "And there you have it."

"So you're lazy." Ruby summarized.

"I'm not lazy." Jack said, "I'm just not responsible."

Ruby laughed. "Isn't that the same thing?"

"No." Jack said annoyed. "Its not."

When Ruby pulled in to the cabin she turned to Jack, "Well this was fun. I guess I'll see you around."

"Are you inviting me on another date?" Jack grinned.

Ruby stopped in her tracks and laughed. "This was not a date."

"Oh?" Jack asked. "Then what was it?"

"You just followed me around while I had breakfast. It was just you stalking me. It wasn't a date." She shook her head.

Jack scrunched his nose, "Well I say it's a date. I really did have fun though, Nothing. Even if you do like disgusting food, maybe next time we can try something that actually tastes good?"

"It's not a date unless I say it is!" she shouted. Jack laughed and began to fly away. "And call me Ruby!"

He smiled and she laughed at how stupid she felt.

* * *

**My school is starting up again so I don't know if I'll be able to update as fast as I have been, but I will definitely continue with this story! Please leave me feedback on what you would like to see or how I should continue, I would love that input! Once again, thanks for leaving so many reviews and follows and favorites, it makes my day when I see that someone has read my story**

**Xoxo – Your protector**


	4. Chapter 4

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…" Frank Sinatra's voice filled the house; Ruby could hear her mother singing along in the living room.

"Hi." She said wiping her boots on the welcome mat.

"Where have you been?" her mother cried. "It's been four hours! Did you buy milk?"

"I got home a while ago; I just went for a walk in the woods with my camera." Ruby explained. "And no sorry I forgot the milk."

Her mom sighed heavily. "Your father and I have talked it over, and we think you should give up the camera. For this week at least."

Ruby gasped and held it against her chest, "No."

She began running up to her room, "Just a week! We just want you to be with the family! You never spend time with us anymore!"

"Because I don't like being around you guys!" Shouted Ruby from the top of the stairs. As soon as it had escaped her lips she had regretted it, her mother's face fell and she could almost imagine how the conversation with her father would go in a few minutes.

Quickly, she ran into her room and got a shoebox from her closet. She pushed aside the pictures she had inside and put her camera in it. She then took a coat from the closet and wrapped the box in it, making it hardly camouflaged. She tucked the box under her bed carefully and made sure the bed skirts hid the box well.

There was a large knock on the door followed by her mom calling her voice softly. "Can I talk to you? Please?"

"Just-Just let me think. Give me some air." Ruby said hurriedly, she wasn't in the mood to have this discussion. "I'll be down soon." She promised.

When her mom had left, she made sure the door was locked and she opened the window. Ruby hoisted herself out of the window by using the gutter and crawled onto the roof. She sat facing the sun and kept her eyes open. She looked at the sun for a long time before finally realizing that her eyes stung. She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly; she closed her eyes and opened them again. Everything looked blue.

Ruby wondered if she should continue like this; keeping her anger towards her parents bottled up insider her. She knew one day she wouldn't be able to contain it, one day she would really snap at her parents.

Shakily, she rubbed her eyes, trying to make the world return to its original shades. She took a deep breath and told herself that things were meant to be this way, she was meant to endure her parents' overbearing wishes. In the end things would work out well for her.

Ruby crawled higher and leaned against the chimney, the brick was warm, probably because there was a small fire lit in the fireplace. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down.

* * *

Even though Jack had seemed to overcome his dizziness while being around Ruby, a new problem had come up. He was seeing her everywhere.

After that morning, he had drifted off to a nearby town and brought blankets of snow with him. But right as he was about to leave, he saw a head of chocolate brown hair out of the corner of his eye. When he rushed after the person, he realized it wasn't her. Another instance was when he passed by a group of kids playing in the snow and thought he saw a familiar pair of electric blue eyes, when he looked up, no one was there.

He tried to shake it, he tried to stop thinking about her, but it felt like the smell of good rain was all he could smell, and the silhouette of her smile was all he could see.

Jack was beginning to grow angry with himself. When was a time when he was allowed to be attached to a human? And after such a short time, he had grown fond of her so easily; that the steady thought of being friends wasn't enough for him. Although he convinced himself he wasn't in love, no, love was an unmatched feeling. Jack thought he would know if he was in love, and he was not in love with Ruby. He was in like. Jack was in like with Ruby.

Happy with himself for sorting out his feelings, he decided to cover neighboring towns with snow and frost. Freezing over the ponds and lakes well, and making sure the ice was thick enough to go ice skating. Jack was somewhat neurotic about that, and coated the ice nearly eight times before seeing the thickness of the ice was four feet thick, and the water was only about two or three feet deep.

Feeling content, he decided to return to Ruby, he wanted to mock her more about how she had taken him to town. He remembered what she had said about what kids at school did to her and his stomach sunk. The way she had said it made her seem indifferent, but her eyes held a great amount of sadness and that had made Jack sad too.

When he arrived at the house, he immediately sensed something was wrong. He looked around and noticed a figure sitting on top of the roof, it was Ruby.

He flew over and landed on the roof, "What are you-"but she was asleep.

She had actually fallen asleep on the roof. This made Jack want to laugh.

He could hear her mother and father calling her from inside the house, and wondered if something had happened. Maybe they had fought?

Jack walked over and knelt down, he shook her shoulder. "Hey, wake up! Your parents are calling you."

She didn't even stir.

"Come on," he patted her cheek gently. "Ruby…" he called. Jack shook her shoulders again, and tried tickling her feet. Nothing.

"Why are you such a heavy sleeper," he whispered to himself half amused. "Well I guess there's only one thing left to do."

He put her right arm around his neck and scooped her up gently. He struggled to keep his footing, but slowly was able to descend the steep roof.

Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn't wake up. Instead, she punched him with her free hand, and then wrapped her other arm around his neck and snuggled into his chest, continuing to dream.

Jack felt his heart jump as her warm body folded against his. He could feel her heart beating softly inside her chest; it beat at a steady and calm rhythm.

When he finally got her inside, he laid her down on her bed. He had to unlatch her fingers, which were wound tightly around his neck, and when he did, she scrunched up her nose and turned away from him.

Loud knocking began, and he could hear her father's voice shouting her name. Panicking, Jack slid under the bed just in time before her father broke down the door.

"Ruby!" he bellowed.

He could feel her sit up in bed quickly, "Wh-What happened?"

"Your mother and I have been worried sick! You've been locked up in your room for five hours! We didn't know what had happened to you and you didn't answer!" he sounded nervous.

"I'm sorry." Ruby sounded genuinely frightened by her father's loud voice. "It won't happen again."

"You're damn right it won't," he walked over to her bed. "Where's your camera? I'm taking it away."

Jack could sense Ruby's fear. "I-I don't remember where I put it."

"Yeah. And I was born yesterday! Hand it over!"

She sniffled and got out of bed, Jack could see her legs shaking. She bent down and lifted the bed sheet, when she saw Jack she opened her mouth as if she were going to accuse him of something, but reached for a bundled up jacket sitting next to him instead.

"Here" He heard her say to her father.

The next thing Jack heard was silence, and then her father's footsteps leading away from the room, the door closing behind him.

Ruby got back on the bed and he wondered if she had gone back to sleep. He crawled out from under the bed and she looked at him with glassy eyes.

"Do you want me to go?" he asked her, heading for the window.

She looked down and he saw a tear fall from her eye. "Can you just lend me your shoulder for like one second?" she asked.

Confused, he approached her and sat down on the bed next to her. She reached out for him and gave him a hug. Jack's stomach did a somersault and he felt his ears getting hot, "Uh… what are you-?"

"Just shut up and don't look at me." She demanded.

Jack slowly put his arms around her and held her close, she was shaking and would occasionally let out a choked sob. She nuzzled her face into his chest and kept it there, Jack could feel her heart racing as she held on to him. He could feel his t shirt getting wet with her tears, but he could hardly notice. He didn't know how long they he had sat there, holding her, it could've been hours and he wouldn't have known, it could've been minutes and he wouldn't be able to say, all he knew that it wasn't enough time holding her.

"Are you alright?" he asked finally breaking the silence.

She pulled away from him, her eyes were bloodshot. "Yeah. Sorry about that, I just get kind of scared when my dad gets angry like that." She cast her eyes down and wiped them. "You can go now if you want."

"Are you sure you're ok?" he asked.

"I said I'm fine!" she cried softly clutching her head. "This happens a lot, I'm used to it. I'll just take a shower and go downstairs and try to act like nothing happened. I'll be fine. You should go."

"But I-"

"Sorry I made you do that, it's kind of embarrassing on my part," she sniffed. "You hardly even know me and you've already seen me cry." She gave a sad smile. "I guess I'll see you later then,"

She got up and left, he wanted to reach out and hug her again. He wanted to really make her feel better, not just let herself be convinced that she was ok. Jack wondered why she did this to herself, tortured herself, and asked himself how he could help.

As the moon rose up in the sky, he could feel it pulling him away. Jack would be back for Ruby, he would be back and this time he would make her smile again.

* * *

**Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, and follows! I appreciate them very much!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'll make this quick since I'm hiding in my bathroom trying to send this (I'm supposed to be asleep at this hour). This chapter is kind of bad since I wasn't able to look over it that much, kind of like the last chapter, but that one got a lot of great feedback so I must be doing something right **** haha. Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows, favorites, and just for reading!**

* * *

That night, during dinner, Ruby said nothing to her parents. Her eyes were puffy and red and her parents knew she had been crying. When her mother had attempted to make amends, Ruby only asked that they not say anything. She felt bad for Charlie, she didn't like acting like this and she knew it made an impact on him.

Charlie noticed the tension during dinner and asked, "Can we go out to dinner tomorrow?"

Her mother clasped her hands together, "That's a wonderful idea! We should!" she exclaimed and looked at Ruby's father expectantly.

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "I'm fine with anything, but where would we go? There's nothing around."

"We can just drive to another town and go out somewhere there." She turned to Ruby, "Are you alright with that? Maybe we can find a sushi restaurant or something!"

Ruby made a face, she didn't like sushi, and she never had. She didn't say anything negative though, "Fine." She picked up her empty plate and left the room.

* * *

When she finally got back up to her room, there was a note on her pillow, it was written in scraggily, messy handwriting.

_Ruby,_

_I'm sorry you were feeling bad, and I'm sorry I couldn't do anything about it. If you want to be cheered up, take the trail into the woods behind your cabin. I'll be waiting there; even though I'm not sure you'll come because you seemed kind of embarrassed earlier._

_Your friend,_

_Jack Frost_

Ruby's face went crimson. She had nearly forgotten about the ordeal with Jack, not to mention how she had probably ruined his shirt and made a fool out of herself.

Truthfully, Ruby was glad he had written her a letter and she had proof that he wasn't some sort of figment of her imagination, because for once it was nice to have someone to confide in.

It was true; Ruby wasn't very friendly at school. She had one or two friends from school that were more likely to be labeled acquaintances, and then she had a few close friends from ballet. The only real friend she had was Mark, who had been her ballet partner since he had been the Nutcracker and she had been Marie in the Nutcracker when they were eight. He was commonly mistaken for her boyfriend, which made them both laugh out loud since they were probably closer to brother and sister.

But she hadn't talked to him in a while. Apparently things were going well for him at school, which hadn't been the case before. It had been one of the things they had in common; they were both excluded at school. Ruby felt quite lonely when they had drifted apart. And then when Ruby quit ballet, he had cut her off completely. Without another word, without even recognition, and that had hurt Ruby more than a proper goodbye; because this way made her feel like she was just as important to him as his next ballet partner.

There was a soft knock on Ruby's door that made her jump, she stuffed the note into her nightstand quickly and sat on her bed.

Her mother came in with a mug of apple cider and what looked to be a newspaper under her arm. "Hi there." She smiled warmly.

Ruby eyed her suspiciously as she made her way over to her bed and sat down.

"This is for you." She handed Ruby the mug of cider. "I know you love it."

Honestly, Ruby didn't like apple cider that much. "Thanks." She mumbled dryly.

"Also, your father and I know how much you love this piece… so…" she held out the thing Ruby had thought was newspaper.

On the front of the booklet was printed in fine cursive, _Pas de Deux_. Ruby was surprised her parents had finally gotten one thing right; she did really love this piece. But that didn't make her want to go and play it on the piano. She sat up and flipped through the pages of the piece, it required a lot more focus and talent than she was willing to put into it, but she would admit it would be nice to hear.

She took a sip of the cider and it burned as it slid down her throat, "This is really nice of you guys." She said monotonously.

"We knew that you were upset earlier so we wanted to do something for you. I remember how you used to talk about being the prima ballerina in this piece." Her mother said nostalgically.

_Yeah, when I was nine years old._ Ruby had wanted to say, but kept mouth shut.

"Well, it's late and Charlie wanted to go sledding tomorrow, you wouldn't mind taking him, would you?" asked her mother hesitantly.

Ruby glanced at the clock, it was only eight thirty. "Umm, sure."

"Great! I'll wake you up early, I'm sure Charlie will be up early too, he's so excited." Ruby's mother got up and walked towards the door. "Goodnight!" she smiled, trying to hide her worried look.

As soon as the door shut, Ruby fell back on her bed and groaned into her pillow. Her parents didn't really get her at all, at first when she had heard of the 'teen phase' where you hated your parents was when she was twelve, and she thought that was dumb. She remembered thinking that not everyone's parents could be 'the worst in the world' and not every teenager could feel like they didn't 'get them' but Ruby's parents actually didn't know her at all. They might as well have been strangers to be honest.

* * *

Ruby got ready to go out; she let her hair out of her ponytail and tried to dry it with a towel. She dumped the cider down the toilet without a second glance, and then brushed her teeth to get the taste out of her mouth.

When she was done in the bathroom, she changed from her pajama shorts into a pair of blue velvet pants and a white sweater. When she opened the window, the air was particularly colder than she had anticipated, so she brought along her black jacket.

At first, Ruby thought she could climb out of the window easily and just get her boots which she had left on the front steps. After crawling out and hanging onto the gutter looking down at a ten foot drop, she decided to just walk out the front door.

There was a flashlight under the sink in the kitchen which Ruby grabbed on her way out, if she was going to walk through the woods in complete darkness, she wanted to at least see what was going to kill her. She slipped on a pair of fuzzy striped socks and then pulled on her boots.

She nearly ran out the door, soaking in the night of a full moon. Her mind silently nagging her that she should've taken a picture of it.

* * *

Jack was so sure she wasn't going to come, he was about to leave.

When he had left her earlier, he flew over a hidden pond in the forest and wondered if she would appreciate having a little bit of fun.

It had taken him ten minutes to fully freeze the ice and make sure there was no way for it to break. And then another thirty minutes to find an ice skating rink and 'borrow' a pair of skates.

"…Jack?" she called out softly. She sounded frightened.

His heart leapt knowing she had actually come. He ran over to the opening of the forest and waited for her to appear. "Hi!" he jumped out right as she looked over to him.

"JESUS FUC-"she jumped and he covered her mouth quickly.

"I see, you're one of those people with colorful vocabulary." He laughed.

"It's only colorful if you SCARE ME TO DEATH!" she yelled, picking up the flashlight she had dropped in the snow. When she looked up, her eyes widened in awe, "What is this place?" she asked looking around.

The pond was surrounded by snow banks and trees, and if you looked up, it looked like the sky was a dome. The full moon served as light, making the whole scenery glimmer.

"You couldn't have showed me this place when I still had my camera?" she turned to him, annoyed.

He shrugged. "I just found it. Now come on, put these on." He tossed her the pair of skates he had borrowed. "I hope you're a size eight."

"I'm a seven and a half." She corrected, catching the skates by their laces. "And I'm not sure about this, is it safe?"

Jack looked at the pond and thought about how long it had taken him to freeze it over. "Positive, I tested it myself."

"Well okay," she sat down and began to take off her boots. "This better not be some creepy scheme, you get me out in the woods alone so you can murder me and eat me or something." She huffed.

"Is that really what you think I do? I'm supposed to make snow, not be a psychopath." He offered her his hand as she tied the laces of the skates.

"Hey, you're like, the only person I've ever met that doesn't like coffee, who knows what you are." She took his hand and hoisted herself up. "We should have done this on the ice." She said looking down at her skates in the snow.

She laughed, and then Jack laughed. "Whatever, just try to walk over, I'll help you."

She held on tightly to his hand as he led her onto the ice. Jack's heart was beating rapidly in his chest, he could almost feel it in his throat. Her hand was so soft and warm, and it seemed to fit his perfectly.

"I've never done this before," she warned.

"That's fine, I do this all the time." Jack smiled. "I'll teach you."

Ruby looked at him quizzically. "What about skates?"

"Don't need them." He said looking down at his bare feet. "Watch," he let go of her hand and glided away, he ran along the ice and she watched, astonished.

"Hey hold on a second come back here!" she said beginning to lose her footing.

He stopped a foot away and laughed as she struggled to regain her balance, and end up falling on her butt. He laughed harder.

"Stop that!" she shouted. "That's not fair! I haven't gone ice skating since…" she paused. "I haven't gone in so long I can't remember the last time I went!"

He snickered and pulled her up with both hands. "It's easy; just slide forward a little..."

"It's easy," she mocked in a high pitched nasally voice, "Just hike to Alaska, write a novel-"

"Do you want to learn?" he asked laughing. "It's really not as hard as you're making it seem. Here," he pulled her forward and then let go, she flailed a little and then grabbed his hands as soon as he was in reach again. "See? You skated a little-"

"I also saw my life flash before my eyes." She added.

"Fine." He wracked his brain for another idea, "Hold on a second." He ran to the edge of the pond and grabbed his staff, "I think this'll work…" he put the curved end of the staff around her waist and pulled her forward.

She glided towards him, "Well I guess that's one way…"

He grinned, "Want to go fast?"

She gulped and looked like she was going to object.

"Too late!" he yelled as he ran across the pond, pulling her after him.

She almost screamed, but then started laughing instead. "This is crazy!"

"Are you at least having fun?" he called over his shoulder.

"This is the most I've had all year actually!" she said happily, there was a hint of sarcasm and Jack couldn't tell if she was kidding.

He stopped and she glided forward, he held out his arm and caught her by the waist before she could go tumbling into the snow. She looked at him confused and he felt his stomach twist, "Your life must be awfully dull then." He tried to joke.

She scoffed, "You hit the nail on the head, my friend."

"Oh come on, there must be some fun stuff that you do back at home." He inquired.

"Let's just say, the highlight of my day is when I go to bed." She laughed. "It's kind of pitiful actually."

"It's not pitiful-"

"You know what the saddest part is? I think you're the closest thing I have to a friend right now, Jack." She cast her eyes down, "And I've known you for what? 24 hours?"

"That is pretty bad." He nodded.

"What?" she widened her eyes.

"Your best friend is a three hundred year old magical being that can bring cold weather, but oh- he can only be seen by select children who believe in him. That's pretty bad," he grinned.

She laughed and bent down; she took off her skates and crawled over to the snow bank. She balled up a scoop of snow and threw it at him. "You're mean!"

He made a snowball with his staff and threw it at her, "Says the person who stained my sweatshirt!" he pointed to the stain, "Look at this! I don't own a washing machine you know,"

She laughed, "Oh yeah that's right, you're lazy!"

"I'm irresponsible," he corrected.

"You know what," Ruby looked at him, the moon made her eyes twinkle like nothing he had seen before and he had to stop himself from staring. "I feel like I've known you for more than a day."

Jack wanted to shout the same thing from the heavens, he felt like he had found something missing when he met her.

"Maybe you were my dog or something in a past life."

He narrowed his eyes, and threw another snowball at her. She giggled. "Get out of here."

"Fine," she said putting her boots back on. "I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"

"What?" Jack asked confusedly.

"You're taking Charlie and me sledding." She said, "Be at my front door at nine tomorrow morning."

"Hey I have other obligations you know," he started.

She put up a hand, "Oh please, obviously you haven't been doing your job very well. You've been here for the past two days."

"My job is to make kids happy, I'm making you happy aren't I?" he grinned. She blushed and his heart soared.

"Oh just shut up." She turned away and clicked on her flashlight, "See ya."

And she disappeared into the nighttime.

* * *

**Hooray for corny endings! Please Review! It means a lot to me! Thanks for reading!**

**Xoxo – Your Protector**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey all! Happy Wednesday (not really, Wednesdays are awful :(**** ) I'm so sorry you're all receiving an email twice, I accidentally updated the chapter without editing it :-/ sorry! Anyways, I was amazed by all the feedback I received on the last chapter despite some horrendous and embarrassing mistakes I made, you guys are the best! (Blows kisses) Ok so I wanted to let everyone know that the plot hasn't fully picked up yet because we haven't learned everything about Ruby yet (a lot is said in this chapter) and she hasn't met the other guardians yet. Also, someone asked me if I was going to bring back Pitch as conflict and to that I say, I do not know yet. I probably will since I'll most likely be too lazy to think up something else, but until then it is undetermined (I probably will use Pitch).**

**On a side note, if you've read The Perks of Being a Wallflower (great book, I recommend it to everyone) I used the term "Ponytail Derek", just because I loved that. I also named her brother Charlie because of Charlie so… yeah. Neither of those characters belong to me, even though I'm not actually using those characters, just their names.**

**On with the chapter, hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Ruby woke up the next morning actually excited for the day.

When she got downstairs, she had arrived just in time to have breakfast with the rest of the family, much to their shock, she was actually cheerful.

"Good morning!" she said smiling.

Her mother almost dropped the plate of pancakes she was holding, "Oh! You're up so early! I was going to wake you up in about an hour or so…" she glanced at the clock hanging up next to the fridge. "How are you feeling?"

Ruby sat down and put two pancakes on her plate and lathered them in syrup. "Great! I can't wait to go sledding with Charlie!" she looked over to her brother who had wide eyes.

Charlie and his mother exchanged confused looks and continued to eat breakfast.

Ruby stayed in the conversation animatedly throughout all of breakfast. Even her father had dropped whatever he had been reading to join in with the family.

* * *

"Do you think we'll see Jack today Ruby?" Charlie asked as they got the sled out of the basement.

"I personally asked him to come with us," she replied excitedly. "He promised to meet us outside the house."

Charlie jumped with joy and began to ramble on about how this was going to be the best day ever. Ruby smiled to herself and wondered what the day would be like. After going ice skating with Jack, she had climbed into bed without changing and fallen asleep instantly. It was the best night's sleep she had had in a while.

Jack was outside, waiting for them when they walked outside. "Hey," he smiled at Ruby when he saw her and her heart fluttered.

Charlie attacked Jack in an unexpected hug and started talking to him about all he had been doing for the past couple of days.

Ruby actually felt a bit guilty about ignoring her family until now, Charlie at least. Charlie was never a bad kid, he was never annoying, he never did anything to bother Ruby, and he only really talked to her when she talked to him. Charlie always knew when she was in a bad mood and always did his best to make her feel better. Although he was a bit oblivious to her complex with her parents, he always told her to beat up the kids at school for him. He told her that even though he was little, and couldn't do much about it, he wanted to protect his sister.

She took Charlie's hand in hers and walked next to him and Jack. Charlie looked at her curiously but didn't say anything about it; he squeezed her hand tighter and seemed to wear an even bigger smile than before, if it was possible.

* * *

Jack didn't think sledding was that hard until he saw how Ruby and Charlie liked to sled.

Not only had the picked the steepest hill in the whole town, they spent about twenty minutes trying to clear a path that didn't involve getting hit by a tree on the way down. And after that, they discussed different ways that they could gain speed on the way down.

"You guys are so technical about this, you'll spend the whole day arguing about strategy and you'll never sled!" he laughed.

They both paused and looked at him, "We're open to ideas." Ruby said, irritated.

"Come here, both of you." He ordered picking up the sled.

They both walked over and he set the sled down, "Okay, Ruby you get on first."

Ruby sat down and looked around expectantly.

"Alright now Charlie, you sit between Ruby's legs." He ordered.

Charlie sat down in front of Ruby and gripped her legs, Ruby looked at Jack. "Don't push us down yet I want to-"

But he sent them down the hill, Ruby let out a high pitched scream whereas Charlie was laughing excitedly. The sled sped up and dumped them into a snow bank below headfirst.

Jack flew over to see if they were alright since neither of them was getting up. Jack was somewhat worried that one of them had gotten hurt, but when he saw them laughing, he was relieved.

"…You were screaming the whole time!" Charlie accused Ruby, "I couldn't even notice what was going on!"

Ruby was clutching her stomach and laughing, "Charlie you were holding onto my legs so tightly I think you squeezed the circulation out of them!"

"Well I didn't want to fall out!" he protested.

Jack smiled crookedly, "You guys are a mess, is this your first time sledding?"

"It's our first time since last year." Ruby explained. "We live in Florida so there's never any snow to sled on."

Jack nodded, "It's too warm down there; I hate it."

"I prefer it here," Ruby agreed. "I like having seasons, not just seeing green leaves and sunlight all the time. It gets boring in pictures after a while."

Jack laughed.

"Wow Ruby you're bleeding!" Charlie exclaimed pointing at her hand.

Ruby and Jack looked down at her hand, there was a deep gash oozing blood on the back. "Ouch," she winced. "That looks like it hurts."

"You didn't even feel it?" Charlie asked puzzled. "That looks worse than when I feel out of the tree in the backyard!"

Ruby cringed, "Charlie, you broke your arm. This is just a scratch," she stood up and brushed the snow off her pants. "I'll just head back to the house for a second and wash it off."

"Do you need me to go with you?" Jack asked, when her eyes met his, his stomach did a flip.

She shook her head, "It's no big deal, really. I'll be right back, stay with Charlie."

Ruby disappeared into the forest clutching her hand.

"I hate when she does that." Charlie grumbled.

Jack turned his attention to the little boy, "Does what?"

"She pretends she's not hurt so nobody gets in trouble." He mumbled sourly. "It's just like what happened with Ponytail Derek."

Jack cocked his head, "Who's that?"

Charlie scratched his cheek and looked around nervously, "I'm not supposed to tell anyone about what happened. But he made Ruby bad."

"What do you mean 'bad'?" Jack asked apprehensively.

"Oh god, Ruby's gonna kill me…" Charlie rubbed his nose. "I called him Ponytail Derek because he had a ponytail and thought it looked cool, but I thought it was goofy. He was Ruby's boyfriend two years ago even though he was a year older than her, mom and dad were really mad, but I think that's what Ruby wanted."

Jack sucked in a breath, maybe he really wasn't supposed to hear this.

"He always smelled like smoke and he always had one of those paper thingy's that puff out smoke in his mouth," Charlie gestured with his fingers what Jack assumed meant smoking a cigarette. "Ruby didn't actually like him, she would always complain about how mean he was to her and how he didn't really care about her."

Jack frowned, why had Ruby gone through such lengths to get a reaction out of her parents?

"Mom and dad would always yell and Ruby and Ponytail Derek would always be kissing on the front steps or on the couch or in her room. Ruby would always skip class and ballet and would ride on his motorcycle even though mom and dad told her not to. She was really bad." Charlie gulped, "And then when mom and dad weren't at home, Ruby and Ponytail Derek were fighting and- and he hit her."

Jack balled up his fists angrily.

"Ruby's eye got all black and she was crying, she told me that she was okay and to not tell anybody. I haven't told anyone since then, but I'm pretty sure mom and dad found out because of her boo-boo." He gestured to his eye, "But Ruby got even badder after, she would come home late with other boys that nobody knew. I didn't see Ponytail Derek anymore, but the other boys were older and badder. In the end, mom and dad sent Ruby away for a while and when she came back she was okay." Charlie sighed. "But I think she's still mad at mom and dad."

Jack felt horribly empty. He wanted to pretend like he hadn't heard it. Ruby wasn't like that; Ruby didn't throw herself around to get back at her parents. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears and for a second he couldn't hear anything.

Charlie was biting his nails and looked anxious, "You can't tell her I told you that! I'll get in super big trouble!"

Jack gave a hollow smile, "Don't worry, I won't say anything."

"Thanks Jack!" Charlie returned to his predominant cheerfulness, he picked up the sled and began walking up the hill again.

Ruby returned a few minutes later with her hand wrapped in gauze, "Mom went a little crazy."

Charlie snickered and they began sledding again. Jack tried to push away the yearning to grab Ruby and hug her and tell her that she didn't need to make herself go through things to get attention, because he would always be there. But he didn't. Jack put up fake smiles for the rest of the time until Charlie and Ruby went home. And still he felt empty, so, so empty.

* * *

"It's raw fish!" Ruby tried explaining to Charlie what sushi was as they left the house.

"What?!" Charlie scrunched his nose. "Fish is already bad cooked!"

Ruby and her mother laughed as the family piled into the car, "Can you imagine? Some people eat it every day! Lunch, dinner, and even breakfast!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Breakfast too?!" Charlie made a gagging noise.

"Stop you two, it's disrespectful!" their mother turned around from the passenger seat.

Charlie and Ruby erupted into a fit of laughter in the backseat.

When they got to the restaurant, Charlie spotted Jack talking to a little girl who looked to be a couple of years older than Charlie. "Hey Jack! Over here!"

"Charlie, who are you talking to?" Their father grumbled, "You're making a scene."

"Dad," Ruby placed her hand on his arm. "You go inside; I'll stay with Charlie and calm him down."

Her father looked like he was going to object but her mother herded him into the restaurant to get seated, "Don't take too long now." Was all her mother warned.

Ruby breathed out and noticed her breath was visible, she smiled had started taking deep breaths in order to see the white fog that came from her mouth. "Charlie look! It's like you can-"

When she turned around, Jack was leaning against his staff laughing. Charlie was standing next to him doing what Ruby was.

"What do you do without winter weather?" Jack asked confounded.

"We go swimming." Replied Ruby, "All year round." Jack laughed.

Charlie nodded in agreement, "Hey, can Jack have dinner with us?" he asked Ruby with round, puppy dog eyes.

"I don't know if mom and dad would-"Jack began making the same face Charlie was and Ruby started laughing. "It's not like we can pull up a chair for him! Mom and dad would think we were crazy."

"We can hide him under the table!" Charlie helped.

"Oh, I don't know if-"Jack began.

"Fine." Ruby snickered, "But I'm not taking the blame for this one, if mom and dad ask what we're doing, it's up to you to figure a way out of this one."

Charlie gave a single nod and turned to Jack, "Have you ever heard of sushi? It's raw fish!"

* * *

Ruby tried to nonchalantly lift the tablecloth and slip Jack underneath the table.

"What are you doing Ruby?" her father asked.

She let go of the tablecloth quickly, "I uh, Charlie wanted me to make sure there wasn't anyone hiding under the table."

She could hear Jack sniggering under the table and she kicked him. "Okay…" her parents eyed her suspiciously as she sat down.

"I already ordered a sushi platter for the whole family." Her mother said leaning in. "I'm so proud of you two for being so eager to try it."

Charlie looked at Ruby and raised his eyebrows; she laughed and put her fingers to her lips.

When the platter came, Ruby could already tell from Charlie's expression he was confused.

"Unwrap the two sticks and use them to pick it up." She whispered to him, pointing to the chopsticks on his napkin.

Their mother took their plates and loaded them with all kinds of rolls Ruby hadn't even seen before. Ruby took one with her chopsticks and ducked under the table when her parents weren't looking.

"Thank god, I was so bored." Jack whispered when he saw her.

"Open up," she said motioning to the roll.

He looked at it as if he didn't trust it, "Can you just give it to me and I'll eat is slo-"

She stuffed it into his mouth, "I'm only doing this because I can't finish it all myself!" she whispered apologetically.

He chewed slowly and was about to spit it out when she ducked under again and said, "And absolutely do not spit it out, my parents will think it's one of us and flip out."

She felt him punch her lightly in the foot to which she kicked him softly in the side.

Charlie gave a tortured look as he swallowed the food. "I don't like it,"

"Neither does Jack!" he called from underneath the table.

Ruby shook her head, smiling.

* * *

Jack decided that he had had enough, "I think it's time you guys actually spent time with your family. I'll see you both soon." He promised crawling out from under the table.

"But Jack!" Charlie whimpered, "I don't want you to go!"

Jack smiled, "Don't worry buddy, I'll be back soon. I'm not going far." He ruffled Charlie's hair. "Bye Ruby," he leaned in and gave her a lasting kiss on the cheek.

She jumped and when he pulled away, she turned crimson and looked at him. It took him a second to realize what he had done and then it was his turn to get red. "Uh…" he stepped back and ran into the wall. "See ya," he gave a small wave and ran out of the restaurant.

Charlie looked from Ruby to Jack as he left the restaurant and then back to Ruby. "Do you like him?" he asked her.

Ruby felt her face get even hotter, "No!" she laughed nervously. Although her heart was beating very fast and her stomach had butterflies, and the smell of pine and snow tickled her nose. She denied it as much as she could. But, she had only had one person on her mind for the last few days, but she couldn't like him, could she? Was that even aloud? Little girls must get crushes on him all the time right? What was so bad about a harmless crush? "Besides, Jack would never like me. I'm too dumb!" she joked referring to the night they had met.

Charlie laughed and continued dinner without thinking anything of it. But Ruby kept replaying it in her brain, his soft, cold lips against her warm cheek. It had felt like ecstasy, his touch was electric. But it had been a mistake, she told herself. That didn't stop her from wishing he had really meant it.

* * *

Jack was angry with himself for being impulsive, but he was beginning to get tired of only looking at Ruby. He wanted to hold her, marvel her, hug her, kiss her, and so he had. Although it was small, it was enough to drive him crazy. And he knew that his impatience was growing now that he had had a small taste of what her closeness was like.

His legs twitched and he felt restless. He thought that maybe if he let his legs carry him where they wanted to go, he would see her again. He would hear her laugh that sounded like velvet, her smile that made him feel like he was under a spell, her eyes that seemed to take him to another world; a world where there was only her and him. He sighed discontentedly, this was bad. Very bad.

* * *

**DUN DUN DUN. I'm just kidding, nothing bad is gonna happen… yet. But I will say, I'm excited to write the next chapter. Finally I'm putting this up at a reasonable time, hopefully nobody will have to stay up late to read it this time. I felt guilty about that… So! I hope you enjoyed! Please review, favorite, and follow! It literally makes my day! Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following!**

**Xoxo – Your Protector**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This Chapter will either be a huge success, or a huge flop. I'm too tired to tell, so it's up to you guys. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing! Just the fact that my writing is being praised means so much to me I want to cry! But that's something I'll probably ramble on about later… Two things btw! Someone asked if Ruby will meet the Guardians. Yes, she will. Soon actually, but that's later. The other thing, should Tooth be jealous? Yeah Jack and Tooth had that one, totally out of place moment when they hugged, I don't really see them as a potential couple though… what do you guys think? Should she be jealous? Thanks for reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following!**

* * *

Jack didn't return to see Charlie and Ruby the next day, even though he had promised them. It would be Christmas Eve in three days and Ruby wanted to see him before then. Charlie was very disappointed when Jack didn't come like he had promised. Ruby just assumed something had happened; Jack had been consistent with his promises until now. Something had to be wrong, right?

_Not to mention the fact that he had been completely rejecting his job as Jack Frost, he probably had to work. That was why he didn't come._ Ruby would tell herself.

* * *

As the days trickled by like sand in an hourglass, Ruby became more and more upset. It had been two days since she had last seen him and she felt drained. Waiting for him to come was more upsetting than not having her camera, which she had wondered why her parents hadn't given it back yet.

Ruby hadn't crossed paths with her parents in a while, they had always spoken of trifles at meals together, but there was always an unspoken tension between them. She could sense the growing anticipation in her parents, Ruby wondered if they thought she was going to step out of line again.

The last time Ruby had stepped out of line, her parents sent her to a rehabilitation center, which at first Ruby thought was extremely radical. And upon getting there, she knew she was really in for the worst.

The kids there weren't simply fresh to their parents, they actually had problems. Many of the kids had drug addictions, were abused, or were under probation for crimes committed. Ruby was certainly out of place. And when her parents wrote her letters during the three months she was there, they always asked if she was 'getting better'. She wanted to rip up their letters; she wanted to yell at them for being so overdramatic. She shouldn't have had to put up with being treated so carefully, treated as if she were sick or dumb. All she had done was bothered her parents. They were overbearing and uptight, she was lenient and easygoing. But a flaw in her plan had come up when Derek- her then boyfriend- had hit her, and Charlie had seen. Not only was that a recipe for disaster, Ruby had gotten a black eye, her parents found out, even without Charlie telling them. And then she was sent away for 'her own health' as her parents had put it. Since then things hadn't been the same.

Ruby was of course, not acting as bold with her actions; she didn't go out with boys anymore, in fact, she shut people out completely. People at school would always whisper rumors about her; apparently Derek had made up things about her after she broke up with him. Ruby was known all around school as 'the easy freshman' and frankly, it wasn't easy to make new friends with that label. And so Ruby became more introverted, she dropped ballet completely, and became more active in something that could never disappoint her, never make her unhappy, photography.

Ruby's eyes watered at the memory of it all. If she ever had to go again, she didn't know what she would do. A day there felt like a century. How she had even made it through three months was beyond her.

There was a knock on the door and Charlie entered. He shut it quietly and looked at her sadly, "He's not coming back, is he?"

"I don't know." Ruby sighed and sat on her bed, "He hasn't been in a while."

Charlie walked over and sat next to her on the bed. "Will he come say merry Christmas?"

"I don't know, Charlie." Ruby admitted weakly. "Why? Do you miss him?"

"No…" Charlie pulled a string on his shirt and unwound the fabric. "Well I mean, yes I do, but I think you miss him more. So I want him to come back so you guys can hang out."

Ruby felt her face get hot. Even Charlie was noticing her feelings! Was she being that blunt? "I don't-"

"Dinner is ready!" their mother called from below.

Charlie hopped off the bed and ran out the door; he had obviously overlooked what he had said.

Ruby let out a breath of relief and bounded down the stairs after Charlie.

* * *

Jack couldn't do it anymore. He hadn't seen her in days and his heart had ached every second of it. It was still aching, actually. Which was why he couldn't hold it in anymore; he would see her again tonight, even if it would end him.

* * *

"I haven't heard you practicing that new piece we bought you, Ruby." Mr. Sullivan said during dinner. "I had to drive all the way to another town to get it, you know."

"Sorry." Ruby mumbled. "I haven't found much time."

"What are you talking about?" her mother scoffed. "You've been up in your room on your computer for three days. You've been doing nothing."

Ruby opened her mouth to defend herself, but her father went on, "And you haven't practiced your other piece either, Ruby, we spent hard earned money on finding you a teacher. Use your talent, not many people can say they play an instrument you know. It's very ungrateful of you, you know." He leaned forward in his chair. "Another thing, you're always complaining about kids at school and how you hate school. Do you know how much we spent to send you there?" he narrowed his eyes at her. "Have you ever thought that things at school might not be so rough if you hadn't brought it upon yourself?"

Her mother nodded, "He's right Ruby, ever since you started dating that boy and doing those things, you've never been the same. Now you say things like you hate school and you hate ballet. What happened?"

Charlie looked at Ruby nervously and she felt her mouth go dry. Just as she was beginning to somewhat get along with her parents…

"We should've never bought that camera for you." Her father said. And that was Ruby's turning point.

"You know what?" Ruby stood, trembling. "Frankly I think what you're accusing me of is unfair on my part. You say things about me, that I'm ungrateful and spoiled and that I should've never done this and whatever, but have you ever thought about what you're actually doing when you say those things?" tears pricked in Ruby's eyes and her throat was tight. "You hurt me, badly. Maybe I don't want to do ballet, have you ever thought about that? Maybe I hate it and everything about it. Maybe I don't want to learn an instrument, why do you assume that I do and force it on me? I never asked you to." She took a choked breath, "I actually hate everything that you two put me through. But I do it anyway because I know you'll get upset. And I'm afraid you'll send me away again." Her shoulders shook with every word; her parents looked at her, expressionless. Charlie's eyes were wide and his mouth was open. She went on, "You don't know what happened to me there, do you? I learned that people have things a lot worse than me. I think that you two should go for a while too, maybe you'll learn something too. Like maybe the fact that your daughter doesn't have to be the perfect student, ballerina, and pianist to actually be a good person." Tears started flowing down her cheeks and she tried to wipe them away. "And maybe you'll finally know a damn thing about me too."

Ruby walked away, sluggishly. Neither her parents, nor Charlie stopped her. The room was silent, and the only thing that broke it was Ruby's door opening and closing, the lock clicked and she couldn't hear her family speaking anymore.

"Does this mean Ruby is bad again?" Charlie asked.

Ruby's parents looked at each other, her mother's mouth ajar and her father finally had a defeated look on his face. They said nothing.

* * *

Jack could see a light on in Ruby's room and he wondered if she was still having dinner with her family. He peered into her room and saw her lying on her bed. She looked stiff and was staring straight up at the wall.

Jack opened the window, and jumped inside the room, but she didn't move. "It's nice seeing you too." He joked.

"I've gone and done it now." She whispered, almost inaudibly.

Jack turned around and laughed. "What?"

She sat up, and only then did Jack realize she was crying. His heart felt like it was about to burst when her icy blue eyes met his. "I finally did it. I finally told off my parents."

She reached out for him and buried her face in his shoulder. Jack was worried she would feel how fast his heart was beating, "What's so bad about that? At least they know how you feel now."

"You don't understand," she sniffled. "I can't tell you about it, but I was in a lot of trouble a couple of years ago and-"

"Ponytail Derek?" Jack asked, massaging circles into her back. "Charlie told me about that."

Ruby looked up at him, her eyes were puffy from crying, and she looked mortified. "Is that why you left? You couldn't be around me?"

"No!" he cried. "I left because, well," Jack couldn't say it was because he felt like he was becoming attached to her.

She bent her head and let her tears fall onto her sheep blanket before rubbing them away, as if they were going to stain it.

"Ruby…" he searched his brain for something to say.

She lifted her head and his mind went blank as soon as her crystal eyes met his. His gaze traveled a bit down, to her pair of rosy cheeks smeared with tears. Despite the damps, the skin of her face still looked soft and doll-like, as it always did. He couldn't help the urges to get to know what it felt like against his skin, so, instinctively, he lifted up his hand and put it on a side of her face, surprising her, although strangely, and thankfully at that, she stayed still, only looking at him confusedly. Feeling encouraged, he began to run his thumb against her cheek, which was indeed as soft as it seemed, despite the drying tears. Her eyelids fluttered closed as he moved his thumb over them, gently wiping the remains of wet on her thick eyelashes.

Then, slowly, his eyes fell on her lips, which were deep red instead of pink – must be because she kept unconsciously biting it down. He examined the area around her lips; her nice chin and jaws… but the partly opened, glistening and looking-so-soft lips quickly drew his attention back to them. Almost unconsciously, he began to move his thumb downward and, finally, brushed it gently across those lips, which were indeed soft. The touch made her eyes immediately flutter open, prompting him to look up and found those beautiful blue eyes staring up at him questioningly, and rather apprehensively. He also noticed now that she had been holding her breath.

It had happened in seconds, he had closed the distance between them and kissed her, feeling blissful as his lips met hers for the first time.

They were softer than he expected and she tasted very sweet, like peppermint. The kiss felt a whole _lot_ better, more heavenly than he had ever dreamt of, and he had dreamt of kissing Ruby _a lot _lately_._

He could feel her shock; her body went rigid and her lips were still. But, she didn't push him away. He dubbed this as consent, and brought up his other hand to cup her face with his two hands now, tilting it so that their lips melded perfectly against each other as he continued to savor her.

She didn't give any response, so he brushed his thumb across her cheek again, and slowly dropped his other hand to her back drawing circles there to coax her to relax, and alternately running his fingers through her long soft hair.

To his delight, he began to feel her tentatively, shyly kissing him back. He immediately responded by taking her hands and bringing them to the back of his neck, and was just about to pull her onto his lap when there was a soft rap on her door.

Ruby scooted away from him and looked at Jack with eyes full of longing and uncertainly. He felt as if his heart were about to burst out of his ribcage, Jack's mind scrambled to think of something to say, but the knock came again. Charlie's voice called softly from the other side.

She got up and crossed the room, tripping over a book on the way.

Jack managed to slip out of the window before she turned around and before Charlie entered the room. He could hear Charlie mumbling as he flew into the night, the kiss still replaying in his mind and the feeling still on his lips.

* * *

Ruby's heart was still beating at a rapid and unhealthy rate when Charlie entered her room. She turned around and Jack wasn't there anymore, her heart sunk.

"Ruby," he mumbled quietly. "I don't want you to get bad again."

Ruby kneeled down in front of Charlie, "I promise you I'm not getting bad. I was just angry with papa and mommy and needed to say a couple of things to them. Okay?"

Charlie looked uncertain, but nodded. "Okay. I love you Ruby, I don't want you to go away again."

Ruby hugged Charlie tightly; he had always been on her side. Since the beginning. "I love you too Charlie. You should get to bed, it's really late."

He sniffled and rubbed his nose, he had been crying too. "I'll see you tomorrow Ruby." He was still hanging on to her arm, "Do you think Jack will come tomorrow?"

Ruby's heart fluttered at the mention of his name. She smiled sadly, "Who knows? Maybe."

Charlie and let go of her arm and smiled. "Goodnight."

The door shut and Ruby locked it again.

She walked swiftly to the window, tripping over that same damned book again. She peeked her head out and looked for the familiar head of snow white hair, but it was nowhere to be seen. She frowned, annoyed.

Ruby touched her lips and thought about how his had felt on them.

It was like a breeze on a hot day, or chill that inhabited your body for a split second. Everything about it made Ruby feel sparked. The way his lips fit with hers perfectly and the way he had touched her face and the way he had held her, they all drove her crazy. She felt that if she opened her mouth, it would only talk about Jack and his kisses for the rest of eternity. The mere idea that he may kiss it again was stuck in her brain, which wouldn't stop thinking about his kiss since before any kiss. And now the prospect of those kisses was beginning to wind her up like slipping on ice and hitting the middle of her back. The notion of them continuing for what was traditionally terrifying forever excited her to an unfamiliar degree.

Ruby crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling. She was afraid she would forget it all, or that it had all been a dream.

* * *

Faraway, Jack sat on a rooftop thinking over what he had done. He had taken a step too far, perhaps. But it didn't bother him or worry him as much as if ought to. Because he was too busy thinking of ways to kiss Ruby again. It was something he didn't want to forget, although he felt that it would be something he would remember for lifetimes to come.

* * *

**Sorry if that closing sentence is bad, I couldn't think of anything else and I'm about to drop dead from exhaustion. Thank you to everyone who has been supporting my story! Please, PLEASE review what you think! I could really use the input; did I rush into things too quickly? Is their relationship shallow? Please help! Anything is appreciated! Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, favorite-ing, and following!**

**Xoxo- your protector**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I FEEL SO BAD FOR NOT UPDATING YESTERDAY. But I was super impressed by the amount of follows and favorites and reviews I got, thanks a bunch guys! I know the kiss was super early but I really didn't know where else to put it and I needed to get the plot moving with the story, which this chapter is a bit of a transcending into that. So, we shift gears, sorry if its crap, I'm running on low energy, I'm exhausted. I couldn't update yesterday because I got home at eight and then had to pick up my mom from the airport and then conduct a secret Santa with friends etc etc the list goes on I won't bore you any further. Here you go!**

* * *

The next day was Christmas Eve. Ruby was slightly disappointed when Jack didn't show up, although she didn't know what she would say to him in the first place. She was embarrassed by the amount of which she liked his kiss, and she was afraid if she saw him again she'd want another. There was another problem; Ruby didn't want to face her parents after blowing up at them the night before.

Luckily, Charlie was an angel and brought Ruby breakfast. He mumbled that it was part of his Christmas present and Ruby had laughed.

It was interesting seeing how her parents were waiting for her to come out on her own, although Ruby didn't ever want to come down; she had thought her parents would skin her alive right after her tantrum. Obviously they were trying to drag out the process and make her more scared.

But Ruby hadn't noticed. As far as she was concerned, that kiss had plunged her into an eternal bliss, just the thought of another seemed farfetched.

There was a knock on the door and Ruby reluctantly got out of her bed, dragging her feet.

She opened it, expecting it to be Charlie, it was her father. His face was stern but his eyes were sympathetic, which was never the case. Ruby had a sick feeling in her stomach, "May I help you?" she said sarcastically. Inside, she was quivering as if there was an earthquake inside her.

"Your mother and I want to talk to you." He deadpanned.

Ruby took a deep breath and nodded. She might as well get it over with now, "Fine."

She followed her father downstairs, her heartbeat escalating with every step. When they got to the kitchen, her mother was sitting down at the table reading a William's Sonoma magazine. Her father sat down at the head and Ruby took the opposite end, she was afraid to be too close to them. Her mother looked up and had the same expression as her father did. "Do you know why we asked you to sit down and have a chat with us?" her mother asked.

Ruby shook her head, "I thought I had made myself clear last night."

Her father's shoulders shook and Ruby realized he was laughing. "We want you to be happy, Ruby." Her mother reached for her hand across the table, but Ruby put her hands in her lap. "We didn't know you were this miserable."

"Well I was!" Ruby cried. "Who in their right mind sends their child to rehab because their boyfriend hit them _once_? And I thought it would've been obvious that I didn't like ballet when I came home miserable and dreaded going to it every day, I always said that. Where you guys ever listening?"

Her parents looked at each other nervously, "We're sorry Ruby," her father said sincerely. "We really are."

Ruby felt a wave of guilt flood over her, "It's fine." She lied.

"How can we make you feel better?" her mother asked genuinely.

Ruby thought about it and really didn't want much, "Well for starters I want you guys to lay off with the complaints about how I don't do as well in school as I ought to or practice piano as much as you would like me to. Please stop that. Also, get over the fact that I quit ballet. It's done. Over. I'm never going back to it, ok? Making me feel bad about it doesn't make me want to do it any more than before."

Her parents nodded, although she could have sworn she saw a twinge of disappointment in her father's eye.

"And the last thing is, I want my camera back." She folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her chair. She could tell her parents were still stunned over her sudden boldness, Ruby never spoke out anymore.

Her mother began to nod and looked to Ruby's father. "I think that's a deal."

"One thing first," her father stopped her before she could get up from the table. "Is photography something you are going to pursue as a career? Is this something you want to do for your whole life?"

Ruby didn't know the answer to that question. She shrugged, "I don't know. I'll sit on it for a while."

She rose from the table but her mom stopped her again, "Don't you know what you want to be when you grow up? Even Charlie knows!"

Ruby sighed, "When I was his age I wanted to be a veterinarian, he wants to be a racecar driver. It will change over time, trust me. I don't know what I want to be at this point, all I know is that in the future, I want to be someone that my current self would look up to, that's all."

"What about photography?" her father asked. "You're just doing it for fun or something? You haven't even considered it as a potential future?"

She bit the inside of her cheek, they were persisting beyond the patience she had inside her. "It's something I love to do, it would be great if I could find a job that would allow me to travel the world and take pictures, but that seems a bit unlikely doesn't it? Too perfect? Yeah I would love to do it, but it seems unrealistic. I have no leads on what I want to be otherwise, but I guess yes, I would like to be a photographer."

She was finally able to leave once her parents let out defeated sighs; Charlie was sitting on her bed when she got back to her room. He was flipping through a Christmas photo album. Their family was seemingly bad at keeping up things like scrapbooks and photo albums, but since Ruby liked taking pictures, she had started to take up the position of recording as many moments as possible, even if she had missed many milestones in her and Charlie's lives along the way.

"What's this?" Charlie asked, he turned the album around to face her. There was a Polaroid picture of Ruby, when she was probably about 9 or 10, she was holding two ice packs up to her face in the picture and looking miserable.

"I had just gotten my tonsils out." Ruby laughed, remembering the time. "I didn't cry, I just sat in bed with a long face all day."

Charlie looked at her worriedly, "Will I have to get my tonsils out? Does it hurt?"

She shook her head, "Mom and Dad didn't have to get theirs out when they were little, so I think you'll be fine."

His face looked extremely relieved and Ruby giggled. Charlie's face got serious again, "Are things okay with you guys? Mom and dad, I mean."

Ruby smiled and sat down next to him, "Yeah, we're fine. I think they're gonna start being nicer to me too."

Charlie chewed his fingernails, "When Mom and Dad are mad at you, you're mean to them too. And after you are really sad about it and so are they. So I'm glad everyone will finally be happy again."

Ruby's heart fell; she hadn't meant to make Charlie a victim of her struggle with her parents. "Everyone will be happy now." She promised. "Do you want to go make a snowman?" she offered.

His face lit up and he pushed the album off his lap and onto her bed, he stood up quickly. "Let's go!"

"Just let me change out of my pajamas." She said, smiling.

* * *

"Well, well, well, look who decided to show up?" Bunnymund said in a thick Australian accent.

Jack rolled his eyes, "I felt guilty for not helping out North, it's Christmas Eve you know."

"In all due respect, Jack," Tooth hovered around the globe. "North isn't even around, he's making the final preparations, kids start going to bed soon in other countries." She pointed to Europe on the globe; thousands of bright white lights glowed strong.

"Sorry guys, I've been kind of busy this week." Jack scratched the back of his head; he actually was quite guilty for not being around to help his fellow guardians.

Bunnymund shook his head disappointedly, "You've got the easiest job, lad. At least do it."

"What do you mean 'do it'? I've been doing my job!" Jack yelled defensively.

Sandy put his hands up as if saying he was surrendering. "Calm down, Jack!" Tooth exclaimed, "We weren't accusing you of doing anything."

Jack bit his lip; he was unsure whether or not he should tell the others about his relationship with Ruby. He didn't know what they would do, if they would encourage him or frown upon it, either was possible. What made him nervous is if they asked him to meet her, which would require him actually confronting her after the kiss.

"I don't trust the bloke," Bunny went on, "The fact that we haven't heard from him in a while is strange. The whole idea of him 'doing his job' is suss, he never does his job."

Tooth laughed and Sandy shrugged apologetically at Jack.

Jack gripped his staff angrily; his knuckles turned a brighter shade of white. "I do my job, occasionally."

Tooth and Bunnymund laughed. "But what have you been doing this whole time?" Tooth asked, "Do you have a giiiiirlfrieend?" she elongated the syllables teasingly.

Two figures appeared above Sandy's head, one was Jack and the other was a girl, they were enveloped in a passionate kiss. Sandy added a question mark next to the two figures and wiggled his eyebrows, he was silently laughing. Jack felt his face get hot.

They all stopped laughing and stared at him, "Wait, you're not actually-"Tooth began.

"The bloody fool…" Bunnymund shook his head.

Sandy's jaw dropped.

"I don't have a girlfriend!" Jack cried, "I just- I admire her. We're not in a relationship."

Bunnymund gave Jack a blank stare, "Do you think we're dumb?"

"Oh god, this isn't good!" Tooth buried her face in her hands.

"What?" Jack asked lightheartedly, "It's one-sided; she probably doesn't like me back. In fact, she probably thinks I'm weird after I went and kissed her…" he whispered to himself.

"YOU WHAT?" Tooth yelled grabbing his shoulders; she shook him back and forth. "Jack! Do you know what this means? This is not good! Oh my gosh this is so not good-"

"I don't-!" Jack unlatched himself from her grip. "It's not a big deal! She's most likely creeped out by me,"

"You've got to end things, mate." Bunnymund looked panic stricken. "The last time a mundane and a guardian-"Tooth and Bunnymund looked at each other frightened and Sandy's eyes were wide.

"But I'm not doing anything with her; I just feel really strongly towards her, I really like her. Nothing else is happening." Jack promised.

Bunny, Tooth, and Sandy shook their heads. "Be careful, don't get too attached."

Jack gulped; it was a bit too late for that. "I won't."

* * *

"I want to stay up and wait for Santa Claus!" Charlie exclaimed after dinner.

Ruby's father yawned and looked skeptically at her mother. "I don't know Charlie, your father and I are very tired and-"

"I'll stay up with him." Ruby volunteered.

Charlie smiled up at Ruby happily and their parents reluctantly agreed. "Don't stay up too late," her mother whispered while Charlie wasn't looking. "And try and get him to go to sleep, I don't want him to be too disappointed."

Ruby looked at the tree; there were already presents under it from her parents. Usually they would say 'From: Santa' and Charlie wouldn't even notice that they had been the same presents sitting there for weeks, but there were always mysterious inexplicable presents that wound up under the tree.

Ruby felt really dumb now that she believed in Santa Claus again. There were literally hundreds of signs pointing to his existence, how could she have not seen the truth of it all?

Charlie and Ruby sat on the couch and watched movies for a while. Neither of them had wanted to watch Christmas movies like their mother had suggested, so they just watched the Spiderman movies.

"I want to be Spiderman next Halloween!" Charlie declared with a yawn.

"Does that mean I can be Mary Jane and go along with you?" Ruby joked.

Charlie thought about it, "You should be Green Goblin, then."

She stuck her tongue out at him as he laughed. By ten thirty, both of them had passed out, exhausted.

* * *

North returned to his workshop to get more presents and take a break.

"How long do you have before you have to take off again?" Tooth asked.

"About fifteen minutes," North said grabbing a glass of milk off of a plate an elf brought over. "Just enough time to relax."

Jack scoffed, that was hardly enough time.

"You'll never believe what this bloke's gotten 'imself into this time," Bunnymund pointed accusingly at Jack.

North raised his eyebrows, "Another run in with those Werewolves?"

Jack sighed, "Would everyone let that go already?! It was an accident!"

They ignored him, "Worse, he's fallen for a mundane."

North spit out his drink, "Jack." His eyes had changed from cheerful to stern in a second, "That is one of the most important parts of being a guardian, you are meant to fight for the children. Yes, we love all the children of the world, but we aren't meant to love them like that."

"I don't love her!" Jack said angrily, "I'm just in like with her or something like that."

Bunnymund and North exchanged worried expressions, "Jack," North began. "Come with me on my run to the Western Hemisphere. I want to have a chat with you."

* * *

Jack was quiet for a majority of the time. He had to wait a lot while North went to all the houses; there really wasn't much time for chatting. He thought about Ruby. Had she resolved the problems with her parents? What was she doing at that moment?

His stomach did a flip as he replayed their kiss in his mind, maybe he would experience it again. His heart raced at the thought. The thought that he may be able to kiss her every day, casually, he would see her every day and she would light up his day. And then he thought that's what it will be like when she gets married, and her husband obviously wouldn't be him, it couldn't. And then everything seemed a lot darker than it used to.

North jumped out of the chimney and into the sleigh, "Alright, now that we're done with Canada and Mexico, shall we continue onto America?"

Jack sighed, "Why'd you bring me along? You're working; we won't be able to talk."

"HYA!" North cracked the reigns and the reindeer took off, their bells chiming. "Where does this girl live, we'll see her first."

A lump formed in Jack's throat, he wasn't ready to see her yet. "In Massachusetts,"

North nodded, "What's her name?"

"Ruby Sullivan." He mumbled.

North was quiet, "Why do you like her?"

Jack tried to put his feelings into words, "She sees things differently from anyone I know, there's just something so special about her, I don't know how to explain it. Whenever I'm near her I feel like I'm being pulled like a magnet, her laugh and her smile, and her voice. And her humor too, she's funny. And she's fun to be around, although she's a bit uncertain about herself, she knows how to manage. And let's just say, if you were heat seeking, she's hard to ignore."

North laughed a big hearty laugh. "I knew this would happen soon." He admitted.

"What?" Jack sat up.

"Ever Guardian eventually finds the mortal that is meant to 'complete them'." He explained, "It's only once in your lifetime that they come around and you're bound to them. An inexplicable love the Man in the Moon is yet to explain to us Guardians." North looked to the full moon in the sky and seemingly cursed in Russian. "Tooth had a theory that it was a test for us. If we managed not to become too attached, we had passed the test, if not…. Well, there are certain consequences."

"Like what?" Jack let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in.

"I won't get into them right now," North waved his hand as if shooing the thought away. "All you have to know is that you do not want to face those consequences, I think the best thing for you would be to stay away, or if the urge is too strong, fulfill it, but then try to slowly break the attachment."

Jack felt as if he was being spoken to in some sort of code, "Am I meant to understand what you're saying?"

North ignored him, "Ah. Here we are, wait here."

Jack disobeyed him and flew to the bottom window where he could see her and Charlie sleeping on the couch together, the credits of a movie playing on TV. He smiled. His heart yearned to be there with her, holding her against him in a deep slumber.

North whistled and called him back, which interrupted him from his thoughts. Although Jack was happy he had come, now he knew exactly what he was going to say to Ruby tomorrow. A slight twinge of guilt plagued him; he was going to completely disregard what the others had told him, he was going to fulfill the need.

* * *

**Sorry for such a late update **** Please. **_**Please.**_ _**Please.**_ _**REVIEW!**_ **I could seriously use your help, input your opinions! Thanks for reading!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: CAN'T TALK I'M RUSHING. PLEASE DON'T GET UPSET IF I MADE ANY MISTAKES I COULD'NT CHECK IT OVER.**

* * *

Ruby had had a good Christmas. She woke up on the couch early that morning because Charlie was off the walls excited. They dug into their presents, the majority was for Charlie but she didn't really care.

She had received a Polaroid camera from Charlie, which she assumed her parents had bought, but she still really loved it. The ability to take an instant picture, she had always wanted a Polaroid camera. Her parents had thrown away their old one long ago, and now Ruby had one to herself.

Her parents had given her mostly clothes and CD's, which was fine with her.

Charlie had received a box set of all the Star Wars movies, which he had never seen. Ruby told Charlie they should watch them together, and he had agreed excitedly. Ruby gave Charlie an old CD she had made herself a long time ago, when she was twelve. It was labeled 'Car Rides' which Ruby found kind of funny, all the music went well with car rides though, that was probably how it got its name. She had given it to Charlie because she had a feeling he would really like it. Even if he had looked a little disappointed when he unwrapped the gift.

When Ruby got up to her room, carrying all her new gifts, her camera was sitting on her bed. She dropped all her things at the foot of her bed and scurried to pick it up. It was completely intact; there wasn't one scratch on it.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater and flew down the stairs. "I'm going out!" she yelled as she put on her boots.

"Don't be late!" her mother called back.

Charlie and her father were configuring the movie, with no avail. "Let me help," Ruby insisted pushing them away. She was the only one who knew how to use the DVD player; she was the only one who used it. "And remember to start the movies backwards,"

"What?" Charlie and her father asked simultaneously.

"The movies are in like, reverse order, you start with the fourth and then watch up to the sixth and then start the first." She explained.

Charlie looked confused.

"It will make sense when you watch them." She promised. The previews began, "Okay well I'll be back soon just make sure you don't watch Return of the Jedi without me, that one's my favorite."

She almost ran out the door.

The first breath she took of fresh air felt intoxicating. She hadn't been out of the house for who knows how long now, and finally she would be able to take pictures again.

She decided to go to the place Jack had taken her that night, the pond. The trail to the pond was scenic itself too, Ruby hadn't noticed the first time around since it had been dark, and other things were on her mind. Like Jack.

After taking about twenty pictures, the path opened up to the clearing. The snow was still in a fluffy, untouched state, which made Ruby smile. She padded over and threw herself into it, it made her body feel cooler, she had been extremely warm these past few days. Not only had there always been a fire burning in the house, but something had been burning inside her heart, it was warming her up from her toes to the tip of her head.

She closed her eyes for a second and thought about all that had happened in the past week, something had given her the courage to finally stand up to her parents, and things had gone relatively well for her. It was so unlike her, it was almost scary. It was almost as if something had given her the strength to stop being so indecisive and sort out her priorities, something she had never done before.

She heard a gasp and her eyes blinked open, she sat up, Jack was at the opening of the trees. His bangs were pushed up and his hair looked windswept, her heart began to beat incredibly fast, he looked so handsome... His eyes connected with hers and although she had gone over the situations of what could possibly happen when she saw Jack after the kiss, her heart was still racing. He looked flushed, embarrassed, surprised, and didn't seem to move towards her for what felt like an hour. They held each other's gaze for a while, in comfortable silence. Ruby's eyes finally flickered down to her hair and she brushed the snow out of it with her fingers. She got up and slowly began to advance to him, he took a step back and for a second, Ruby thought he was going to run away.

"Hi." She stopped halfway from where he was standing and where she had just been.

His eyebrows furrowed and he looked down, trying to avoid her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she crossed her arms.

He sighed and seemed to be rubbing his eyes, "I shouldn't have kissed you," Ruby's heart rate escalated at the mention of it, so she hadn't dreamed it? "It was out of line and I'm not supposed to be doing things like that."

"I-It's fine." Ruby croaked, all her words seemed to be stuck in her throat.

"Okay." Jack smiled, "So can we put that aside and still be friends?"

Ruby tried not to frown, her heart plummeted. "Yeah."

"Great," Jack flashed a handsome grin that made Ruby's stomach flip. "So you got your camera back?" he pointed to it, strung around her neck.

"Yeah," she smiled looking down at it. "I ended up chatting with my parents and they gave it back. Oh- Merry Christmas by the way."

She looked up again and was surprised by the amount of desire in his eyes, had he lied? Was he just trying to make her feel comfortable? "Merry Christmas!" he smiled. "Did you get everything you wanted?"

"I mean, I didn't really ask for anything this year, Charlie got me a Polaroid Camera which I'm super excited about. And my parents just got me a bunch of CDs that I haven't looked through yet, nothing too dramatic." She explained, "I'm not disappointed."

"What's a Polaroid?"

"It takes instant pictures, so you don't have to develop them or print them." She said, "They're kinda old though, but I like it."

He smiled, "That's great!" she walked towards him and they fell into step together. They were going back into the forest, Ruby couldn't help but wonder how these were the same woods she'd walked through earlier. Before they had been painted beautiful hues of winter, the sun's golden rays being funneled through the high branches, now the woods just seemed like thousands of ominous tree trunks turned dark by dusk. Ruby hoped Jack didn't sense her fear. "So you're getting along with your parents now?"

She could tell he was restraining himself, but from what? "Um, yeah. They understood I guess, I just kind of told them to lay off, it was so obvious they were pushing themselves to promise me." Ruby picked at the whites of her nails.

Jack forced a laugh, it annoyed her. "At least they're trying."

"You're right." She said biting her lip. Could it be that he hadn't meant to kiss her? Was he trying not to lead her on? Was Ruby getting the wrong idea? She couldn't understand why he was being so awkward around her. "You've tried macaroni and cheese, right?" the question escaped her mouth before her brain could process it. The smell of macaroni was in the air, possibly where her mouth had gotten the idea.

He laughed and cocked his head, Ruby wanted to throw him off a bridge for being so cute. "No, is it any good?"

"It's the best thing you'll ever eat." She said so seriously she almost scared herself, "If you eat the right kind of course."

He raised his eyebrows, "If this is like the whole coffee thing all over again, I swear-"

"It's not." She interrupted, "It's the best food ever. Come on, I'll try and get you some."

She was smiling, but inside she felt quite defeated. Ruby hoped things would get better, if she and Jack couldn't be together; she at least wanted to be friends with him. She thought she would be able to ignore her feelings for a while, they would catch up with her, but until then, she would continue like this.

* * *

"I don't feel very well, I think I'm just going to bed early." Ruby announced in a sickly voice as she entered. She sat down and began to take her boots off. "Meet me in my room," she whispered to Jack quickly.

He nodded and floated upstairs, her window was open, which was kind of careless of her. Although he knew she had done it because of him, and his heart ached at the thought that she may have been waiting for him, and all he had done was reject her, sort of.

She came in moments later; she threw her jacket onto the floor and fell onto her bed, making it creak. "My mom said she'd make me mac n' cheese, I told her I have a bellyache." She said staring at the wall.

"Isn't that exploiting your family?" he asked chuckling.

She shrugged, "They'll get over it, I'm kind of tired of them anyways." She rolled off the bed and began to dig through a pile of things at the foot of her bed. "This is a polaroid by the way." She held up what looked like a black box. "Smile!"

He did and she took a picture, the flash was bright and Jack had to blink a couple of times before he could see normally again. A small paper came out from the box and Ruby took it and waved it around.

When she looked at it she laughed loudly, "You look mental!" she choked between laughs.

He took it from her, frowning. He couldn't help but laugh himself, he really did look insane, and his eyes were wide, because he hadn't expected it and his grin looked more like a grimace. "I hope you get rid of this," he laughed. "This is horrible."

"No I'm keeping it forever," She insisted crawling over to her coat, she put the picture in the pocket. "That way when I'm 38 and wearing this jacket, I'll find the picture and be like 'oh hey- this is Jack Frost, my best friend that one winter break in my junior year of high school' and I'll still believe in you."

Jack's heart wanted to rip itself into billions of pieces, she was saying it lightheartedly, but he could tell she was serious. She wanted him to matter when she was 38.

There was a knock on her door followed by her mother's soft coos, "I'm naked!" Ruby shouted, "Don't come in!"

Jack felt his face get hot, Ruby overlooked what she had said and motioned for him to get under the bed. He crawled under and felt her get under the sheets; he was beginning to blow the dust bunnies around when he heard the door click open.

"Poor Ruby doesn't feel well on Christmas," her mother said sadly. "Here's some mac and cheese, just leave the bowl in your room and I'll get it in the morning." There was a pause and Jack assumed she had given her a kiss on the forehead or handed her the bowl. "You should go to bed early if you're not feeling well, you probably didn't get enough sleep last night. Plus you were outside; all you need is a good night's sleep."

"Ok, thanks mom." Ruby croaked in an amazing fake-sick voice.

The door clicked shut and her mother's footsteps descending the stairs could be heard through the door. Jack slid out from under; Ruby was eating gooey orange stuff out of a bowl. She held it out for him, "Go on, try it."

He eyed it suspiciously before shaking his head, "I'll pass, it looks weird."

Ruby rolled her eyes, "Don't be so picky, you never know, you may like it."

"Well," Jack began. "Based on the other things you put me through before, such as coffee and sushi, I think I'll sit it out on this one."

"I never said sushi was good." Ruby pointed out, "And trust me, I'm not wrong this time." She took another bite.

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Ruby stuffed a spoonful into his mouth. It was actually good this time, it was salty, and creamy, and cheesy, he liked it.

"Right? I was right." She folded her arms across her chest with a victorious smirk on her face.

She pulled the sheets off herself and swung her legs over the edge of her twin bed. She walked over to the closet and began to sift through it; Jack continued to eat her dinner.

"Look at this!" she said giggling. She held up a thin box of what looked like long matches.

"What _are _those?" he asked squinting. He felt bad for nearly finishing her dinner, but it didn't look like she was going to notice.

"They're sparklers!" she said, marveling. "Do you know what this means?" she asked.

He shook his head, still sitting next to the bed with the bowl in his lap.

"This means we can have fun!" she hopped up and down excitedly. She scurried around the room pulling things together in a box, "Well? Are you coming?" she asked, half hanging out the window. "I need you to carry that up to the roof." She motioned to the box on her desk.

Jack wolfed down the rest of Ruby's dinner and left it on the night stand. He picked up the box, not noticing what was inside, and flew up to where Ruby was sitting on the roof.

Although it was dark out, there was a dusky feeling. The sky was a dark gray, not completely black, but more… lukewarm black. Ruby clapped her hands together and set the box down in front of her, "I haven't done this since two years ago…" she said excitedly.

She took out what looked like a cassette player and put it on a flat surface, she took a cassette out of the box labeled 'foolishness' in a messy scrawl that resembled his own handwriting. "What is all this stuff?" he asked pointing to the box.

"Memories mostly," Ruby said distractedly. She slipped the cassette into the player and it began to blare out a distant tune, the singer seemed a bit strange. It all sounded strange. "I used to do this on my own, I think it'll be more fun now that I have a friend." She smiled brightly at Jack, "Oh- and sorry for the 80's music," she added. "It was a phase." She mockingly cringed and Jack laughed.

She handed him a pair of blue sunglasses and she wore a pair of red heart shaped ones. She took out one of the long matches and struck a small match, she lit it and it began to make fizzling noises. The flame grew to look almost like a small firework. Jack scooted away quickly, shocked. "WH- What is that?!"

"It's a sparkler!" she said excitedly, "Don't be afraid! Come here!"

He reluctantly moved closer and touched it, it singed him and he drew his finger away quickly, "OUCH! I thought you said these were fun!"

"You don't hold it from the flame, moron!" she took his hand in hers and put the unlit end in his, as their skin touched, Jack couldn't help but feel his heart quicken. "Here, now wave it around; you can spell stuff out with it! It's cool."

He did as instructed and was caught in complete awe. "This is _AMAZING_!" he shouted laughing.

She smiled and lit one for herself, they sat chatting on the roof for a while, laughing about the sparklers, taking pictures with the Polaroid, and talking about everything. Jack couldn't imagine anywhere else he would rather be, actually, he couldn't really think of anywhere else period. As the music slowed down, so did their pace, Ruby took out a book and began to read it to Jack, insisting that it was the best book ever and that she had read it trillions of times.

Jack laid his head down in her lap and listened to her soothing voice, the book was well written and the words seemed to all connect together as if they were made for each other. Kind of like how Jack felt about Ruby.

Ruby hadn't noticed that his head was in her lap, or that he had been staring at her for quite some time now, she was enveloped in reading the book. Jack found it extremely cute, he didn't know how such a thing as listening to old music and lighting sparklers on your roof had come up, but he was glad it had. He really had a lot of fun.

The cassette clicked when the last song was over and Ruby stopped and looked down at the player. "That's too bad," she yawned and closed the book. "I think I'm gonna go to bed now." She looked down at Jack and her eyes widened, they were caught in each other's gaze and he could feel himself leaning in to kiss her again-

"RUBY SULLIVAN, YOU GET DOWN FROM THERE RIGHT NOW!" her mother's voice bellowed from the window.

Ruby's head shot up and looked to where her mother was leaning out from the window, "Uh-"

"COME. NOW." Her mother ordered. She was livid.

Ruby bit her lip and collected all of the things that had been in her box, she whispered goodbye to Jack and he wanted to reach out and kiss her. He wanted it to be only him and her in a world of eighties music and sparklers and cameras, he wanted to be with her.

She slipped through the window without another word; he could hear her begin to get chewed out by her mother.

Things would get tough from here; he knew he had gone too far. There was no way he was going to be able to cut off his feelings now. Jack had dug himself a hole, and he didn't know where it led to, but he knew it wasn't good.

* * *

**OK, LIKE I SAID I'M RUSHING BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW! THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE THAT HAS AND IS GOING TO. THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING AND FAVORITING TOO. AND ALSO THANKS FOR READING!**

**(RUSHED GOODBYE)**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: I'm in a rush again, it's short but I tried my best. I might not be able to update tomorrow because I have an exam on Wednesday, but we'll see. Thanks for all the feedback, I appreciate it immensely!**

* * *

When Ruby went to bed last night, instead of getting a good night's dream, she had nightmares.

It was darkness, all of it. But that wasn't what had scared her; it was the voice that had come along with it.

"…You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you Ruby Sullivan?" the voice had asked her.

Ruby had struggled to open her eyes, they seemed glued shut. The voice was cold and unfriendly; it mocked her with its tone. It was Ruby's dream, but the voice was somehow controlling it.

"Who are you? What are you talking about?" she asked.

The voice laughed icily, "My darling that's quite personal, but why answer a question with another? I merely have come to tell you that you are being watched very carefully. It's not every day that a mortal steals the heart of a guardian you know. Jack Frost is an enemy of quite a few; we wouldn't want poor Ruby to get hurt, would we?"

"Just tell me bluntly what you want." Ruby's voice faltered, her heart was beating extremely fast, why she couldn't get away from the sick feeling that rose in her stomach, she didn't know.

"I don't want anything…" the voice said in a smoothly. "For now."

"Ruby!" Jack shouted. He was shaking her shoulders and trying to wake her up. Prior to arriving at her window to surprise her, he saw her tossing and turning frantically in bed. She didn't look well and seemed to be struggling. Jack knew what was happening instantly, a nightmare.

Finally her eyes flew open and took a gulp of air as if she had just been drowning. She sat up and held onto Jack's arms as if they were her lifeline; her blue eyes scanned the room like there was something lurking in the shadows. "Wh-why-"

"You were having a nightmare, Ruby." Jack said calmly. He tucked her head into his chest and held her there until her heart stopped racing. She was still, she didn't cry, but she didn't say anything.

She wrapped her arms around his body and snuggled into his chest, making his own heart race. "I don't know why I was so scared." She mumbled into his chest. "It wasn't that scary, someone was talking to me, I just had a bad feeling about it."

Jack froze, could it have been Pitch? "What did they say?"

"They said that I've 'met with a terrible fate' and then he said that you have lots of enemies and that I may get hurt. And then I asked what they wanted, and then they said that they wanted nothing, yet." She recited, "It's kind of ominous, don't you think?" she asked looking up at Jack.

He was still, his eyes were wide and he had a horrible feeling in his stomach. There had to be some meaning towards these words. "I think it's time we went to see the other guardians." He mumbled sourly, "I didn't want it to come to this." He sighed.

"What?"

"Get dressed, we're going to meet Santa." He said grimly.

* * *

Ruby didn't exactly know what he had meant when he said that, but she had definitely thought he was joking.

After she got dressed in the hallway bathroom, he pulled a snow globe out of his pocket and threw it onto the floor. Ruby was about to yell at him, but a circular opening came from the air. On the other side they could see what Ruby imagined was Santa's workshop. Jack entwined his fingers with hers and said, "Sorry about the ride, I don't like it much either." And slipped through the portal, pulling her with him.

Ruby did admit that it was the worst experience of her life, even though it was a short five second feeling, it felt as if something was imploring her body. Her stomach churned and her head pounded. They landed on the other end in a scramble; it took Ruby a while for her knees to adjust after the trip and Jack looked just as disoriented. They got up and for the first time, Ruby noticed the four magical beings in front of her.

She would say, the idea of a Santa Claus with tattoos was nothing she had ever imagined. Not to mention the fact that the elves reminded her more of geese in an elf's body. And yetis? Yetis did the gift-making? That came as a surprise too, but the biggest surprise to her was that the Tooth Fairy looked more like a peacock than a fairy, but Ruby didn't say anything of that nature. All she spluttered out was a small, "Hi."

They all stood in around her and Jack, as if they were deconstructing the two with their eyes. A small yellow man who Ruby soon understood was the Sandman, looked interested, but was closer to dozing off. His eyes were fixed on Ruby's fingers interlocked with Jack's.

She looked down and saw that his hand was still gripping her's, when she attempted to wriggle her hand free, he just held onto it tighter. "Jack-"Ruby looked up at him; he was glaring at the other four across from them. Which Ruby found strange, seeing that they all got along in the fairytales her mother would read to Charlie before bed.

"Why have you come here?" The tall rabbit asked. It had an Australian accent, which made Ruby want to giggle. There was no way she was going to take him seriously, that and the fact that he was a six foot bunny.

Jack looked at Ruby and sighed, "I'm sorry." He started, "I know I was supposed to stop but I-"

"You gave in." The Rabbit spat. "We warned you about this Jack-"

"Let him speak." Santa Claus said in a thick Russian accent, Ruby raised her eyebrows, one unexpected thing after the other…

"She's in trouble," Jack exhaled.

Ruby turned to look at him, "Excuse me? This is the first I'm hearing of this!"

He ignored her and went on, "I think it's Pitch. I think he's back. And I think he's got someone else with him."

The four beings sighed simultaneously, "And now you've gone and gotten a loose end to tie up." The rabbit motioned to Ruby, "The girl is in trouble because you can't swallow your own damn-"

"That is _enough_, Bunny." The Tooth Fairy flitted to his side and pushed him back a bit. "Jack, how do you know all this?"

"She had a dream- a nightmare," he corrected himself. "She says she heard a voice talking to her and it told her that she was in trouble, but something is coming later. I think Pitch is indirectly warning us- me mostly, that he's coming back."

Santa Claus let out another frustrated sigh, "Why did you have to bring her into this, Jack?" he pointed to Ruby. "Now all you've done is given Pitch a way to break you, what have you benefitted from this?"

"I'm happy." Jack stated. Ruby felt her heart flutter. "Before I kept wondering how I was going to live forever as lonely as I was. Finally I've found something that made me truly feel like I could live a thousand lifetimes. Maybe you guys have other things that make you happy, but I don't think I've ever felt as happy as I've been these past two weeks with her." His face got red; he had probably just remembered that she was there.

Ruby kept her gaze fixated on the ground, her face was bright scarlet, and she could feel it. She was dizzy and the butterflies in her stomach were beginning to make her nauseous.

Everyone was silent for a moment, and then she heard the Tooth Fairy speak up in a soft voice, "I'm very happy for you Jack." She said optimistically, "But North is right, she's just in danger now. And if she gets hurt, you won't be able to forgive yourself."

"Um, I'd like to say something." Ruby's own voice filled her ears to her surprise. "I don't think it's fair to say that it'll be Jack's fault if I get hurt. That's my own fault for being around him, isn't it?"

She looked up and they were all staring at her speechlessly, even Jack. "But what about Jack?" the Easter Bunny asked. "He might not feel that way when you're dead."

Ruby gulped, "I'm gonna die?"

"Don't scare her!" The Tooth Fairy cried, "For the moon's sake! No, sweetheart, he just meant eventually, when you're a lot older."

She then came to the revelation that she would grow older and older and Jack would always be that young and good looking. Ruby would eventually be old enough that Jack wouldn't hang around her anymore. "Oh." She said simply. "I hadn't thought of that. But that's not his fault; it's a part of being human."

"At least she accepts it," Santa Claus chuckled. "But Jack might not, that's all we're afraid of. He'll probably beat himself up about it for a long time, and then he has a small chance of turning, its small, but still there."

"Turning?" Jack and Ruby asked simultaneously.

The four looked at each other worriedly; the Tooth Fairy shook her head and bit her lip, "It's nothing to get into now. Don't worry about it. We'll try and monitor Pitch's whereabouts, I thought we had driven him out but apparently not." She smiled warmly at Jack and Ruby, "You two should get going before her parents wonder where she is."

Jack squeezed her hand tighter, she had almost forgot he was holding it. Another portal opened- this one led to her room- and they stepped through it. A million unanswered questions swarmed around Ruby's mind.

* * *

"You said you only wanted to be friends," Ruby said as they settled onto her roof. "Why would you lie?"

Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes, "I-I don't know, I guess I was just afraid of what they had said before. Apparently I'm not supposed to be around you, so I just thought that maybe we could just be friends and that would be enough for me- but, it's not." He didn't look at her.

"That much I could gather on my own," she joked, trying to lift the mood. "But what will happen?"

"I know as much as you." He admitted.

She took a brief pause as if wondering what to ask next, "Do- were you always Jack Frost? Or have you been destined from the beginning?"

Jack sucked in a breath, "I don't remember much from my life as a human." He confessed, "I only know one story from my life as a human and it's the reason I became Jack Frost." He took a breath and recollected the memory he had pieced together over and over again, "I was going ice skating with my little sister when we were little, I guess the ice wasn't thick enough and it was started to crack under us. I managed to save my sister from falling through, but I hadn't done the same for myself. I… died? I guess I drowned, but I'll never be sure. I just remember it being so dark, and I was so, so cold, and then I opened my eyes and I saw the moon. And it told me my name was Jack Frost, and that was it."

Ruby looked melancholy, "You never saw your sister again?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"She was long gone before I even learned that I had had a sister." He shrugged, "I would be more upset, but I didn't even know her. I don't remember anything."

Ruby's face was nearing a pale shade of grey and the knuckles on her hand clutching the shingles of the roof had turned white. "Let's talk about something else."

"I'm sorry." Jack said, he really was, he hadn't intended to scare her. "Let's talk about books, do you want to keep reading me that one from yesterday? You only got two chapters into it,"

"No." she said blatantly, "You weren't even listening while I was reading. I want to know something else."

Jack felt his ears get hot with embarrassment, so she had noticed that he wasn't listening. "Go ahead."

"Were you lying when you said those things about yourself just now?" she said blushing as his eyes met hers. His stomach somersaulted.

The words were seemingly stuck in his throat, "No." was all he said, but he had really meant to say much more.

"Oh." She tucked her knees into her chest and hugged them. "Okay."

She was about to speak again, but Jack leaned in and kissed her.

Ruby stiffened in surprise, but slowly leaned into it. Her eyes closed and he could feel her heart jumping around in her chest, his felt the same, if not faster. When she did finally relax, parting her lips a little, he happily responded by deepening the kiss, running the tip of his tongue over her velvet bottom lip. The kiss that had begun gently now grew more urgent, as the hand that was on the back of her neck had moved down to her waist and drawn her closer to his body.

She dropped her arms from her knees and touched his cheek. Jack felt his heart escalating to a rate that couldn't have been natural, even for a magical being. She brushed her fingers through his hair with her other hand. Jack was about to pull her closer, but it wasn't possible.

She broke away from him, breathlessly. He wanted to pull her back to him and kiss her for eternities, and he could tell by the look of her eye she felt the same. "My parents are probably worried." She said, her chest rising and falling quickly, trying to catch her breath.

Ruby slid down from the roof and into her open window, Jack watched her until he was no longer in sight. He continued to sit there, his heart still pounding, pondering all the ways he could make sure he hadn't imagined her.

* * *

**Please tell me what you think in a review! I have to know what you're all thinking! C'mon, look at that sexy review button down there… don't you want to just, click it? Thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting and following!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I've been procrastinating… I'm so sorry. Yeah I've had a tough time making time for this, my midterm exams are in two weeks and I'm shifting gears and losing energy and patience by the time I come home. I've just had too much to do. I'll be updating a lot faster when all this blows over, so if you can all wait two more weeks, that'd be great! I know I can't wait until winter break. I digress, here's the chapter (finally!) please review, favorite, and follow! I can't thank everyone enough for putting up with my mediocre writing; I want to thank you all! Here you go! Tell me what you think with a review!**

* * *

Ruby was nervous, to say the least.

Every time she blinked, the darkness she saw for that split second chilled her to the bone. She felt like she was anticipating something. A pulse, a twitch. The branches from a tree outside would scrape her window and her heart rate would escalate. She didn't know what was making her so paranoid though.

The nightmares continued every night. Every time the voice would say something different. All seemingly along the lines of 'I'm coming for you soon'. Ruby was chilled to the bone by these ominous premonitions, not only had they mentioned her downfall, they kept referring to her 'fate' as if it were set out for her to be like this since she was born. What was her fate? To be destroyed by darkness? To find herself in an unspoken relationship with Jack Frost?

It had been two days since she had had the nightmare and she had met the other 'Guardians'. That had also been when Jack kissed her for a second time.

Ruby was so unsure about how she felt she didn't want to exist anymore. The thought of Jack being around her felt so _natural_, and yet she was still so unsure. After he had kissed her that day, a different passion that she had experienced in their first kiss, she wondered if she would be able to stay calm around him. If he were to kiss her like that again… who knew what it would lead up to. Perhaps a world where Ruby wasn't governed by her burdens and let her emotions take over, the thought made Ruby blush.

Jack hadn't come back to see her, maybe he felt the same. Or maybe he was battling that unknown force that was beginning to haunt Ruby. Or maybe he had decided to stay away from her for her own good. The last one didn't settle well with Ruby. She wanted to- scratch that- needed to see Jack again, he was like a drug. His smile, his teasing sense of humor, the way his nose scrunched up when there was something distasteful, the way he tapped his fingers on a surface when he was bored, everything added up to why Ruby thought Jack was great.

There was a knock on Ruby's door and her mother entered shortly after, not understanding the concept of knocking. "Ruby, we're going to my parent's house tonight for dinner."

Ruby inwardly groaned, her mother's parents were the worst. Not only were they the biggest pushovers alive, they were also extremely pretentious and flashy. Really, they had lots of money and nothing to do with it. "Okay, do you want me to-"

"Wear something nice." Her mother added quickly, Ruby could tell her mother wanted to impress her parents. Although the notion would fly right past them, they were quite absentminded.

* * *

At four o'clock Ruby began to ready herself, her grandparents lived at least an hour away and they liked to eat early anyways.

After taking a shower she applied what eye makeup she had learned to do after watching her mother in the mirror for three years. When she was a freshman she would wear trashy makeup every day, slowly after that phase she had eased out of wearing makeup and had sported the 'natural' look for what had been the rest of her high school career. People still knew her as a trashy freshman slut, though.

That had been something she was dreading to go back to. Not only would she have to abandon the isolation and snow she had grown so fond of, but she would also have to get back to the place where she seemed to fit in the least. She still had a week left, she would tell herself, although she did feel the day her family would leave coming closer and closer.

Ruby sifted through her closet and looked for a dress that would be suitable for her mother's assessment. All she had were old ones from when she was in eighth grade, she settled on a knee length red dress she had worn three Christmases ago. At least, she had thought it was knee length, apparently she had grown, and it ended around her mid-thigh now.

She pushed that little detail away for now and continued to get ready; hopefully her mother would ignore the fact that it was kind of tight on Ruby now. Ruby blow dried her hair so it fell in small waves down her back. She also parted it to the side, which she knew her mother liked. Usually Ruby would part her hair in whatever it would dry as, so she hoped her mom would see her putting up an effort.

Ruby was checking everything over in the mirror when she heard her window click open. Jack jumped into the room and landed on the bed, it gave a deafening creak. "Wow." She heard him say breathlessly. "Racy…"

Ruby smiled sarcastically, "It was all I had, and I'm supposed to look nice for tonight."

"Well," he seemed to pause as if he was taking in her appearance again. "You do."

Ruby felt her face get hot and when she turned to look at Jack he was blushing too.

He seemed to stumble on his words for a second, "Sorry." He said looking down.

Ruby walked over and crashed onto the bed, the mattress groaning, her face was inches from his. "Are you always this apologetic?"

Jack buried his face in a pillow, "I'm trying to make you think I'm a decent person. Seeing you in a short, tight dress isn't helping my case."

She laughed. "I'll grant you leniency, since I'm too cheap to go out and buy something new." They were both quiet for a while; the air seemed to be filled with thousands of unspoken messages. Jack could sense her nervousness and hear the fast beat of her heart carried by the mattress to his ear. He peeked his face out of the pillow and thought about how easy it would've been to close the inches between their mouths. Normally, Jack could sense people's feelings easily, but with Ruby, everything he thought he knew was clouded by what he wanted.

She giggled quietly; Jack couldn't help but think it was a terribly cute noise, and also completely at odds with how he normally thought of her. "I have to go to my grandparents' house for dinner." She said finally. "Do you want to wait for me? I'll be back by eight or nine."

Jack nodded without looking at the clock. Ruby laughed again and rose from the bed; she put her shoes on and walked out the door. She looked back at Jack with a tender sorrow in her eyes, something that seemed to tell him 'I'll be back soon' and 'wait for me'. And so he did.

* * *

Ruby didn't really like her grandparents.

Not only was their taste ridiculously tacky, they tried so hard to be 'in' with pop culture, it was somewhat nauseating.

Her grandmother answered the door in a tight black dress that hugged her in all the wrong places. "Hello!" she answered happily, flashing a (newly whitened teeth) grin.

Ruby forced a smile and gave her grandmother a hug.

Ruby's grandmother had bleach blonde hair that had come right out of a bottle. On Ruby's mothers' side of the family, her grandfather had light brown hair and her grandmother had dark chocolate brown hair like Ruby, although now her hair should be light gray or white, obviously she had (tried) to solve _that_ problem. Her grandmother's eyebrows were so blonde they were almost invisible, making it difficult for her to look angry, apologetic or quizzical. She had obviously dyed those too; she was supposed to have dark bushy caterpillar eyebrows like the rest of the family.

Her grandmother was supposed to be around sixty four, but she could pass for someone in their mid-fifties. Mostly because of the outfits she wore and her need to keep her physique in shape. Ruby wanted to puke every time she saw her grandmother because she dressed even more revealing than Ruby did; she knew more about the latest fashion than Ruby knew about types of films. She also always pushed Ruby to find new quote _boy candy_ unquote. She never talked about the weather, or taking walks during the fall, she didn't talk about the whimsical and philosophical things other old people did. Her grandmother had never discovered herself at an old age, she was still living as a teenager, a very materialistic and pretentious aura following her wherever.

Her grandfather on the other hand was like a dog following its owner around, a puppet being controlled by its master. When her grandfather was with his wife, he let her take control of things easily, and he let her do whatever she wanted to him. Individually, he was very much like Ruby. He thought the world was unconventionally beautiful, and he would often talk about places he would want to go to. He had written Ruby a list of places she must go before she died, he told her to go and take pictures and bring them back so he could see them. Because he had though he would never be able to breakaway and see them for himself. Whenever Ruby was alone with him, she would always ask her grandfather why he put up with her grandmother, and he would always reply, because he loved her too much. Ruby thought it was admirable, but if she was her grandfather she would have booked it after her grandmother had discovered People magazine, that was where things had started to go downhill.

When she saw her grandfather, she smiled widely and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back and smiled at her like they had a secret. "It's been a while." He said sadly, "I was beginning to worry I would go insane."

Ruby laughed. "Just now you started going crazy?"

He winked at her, "Don't say that too loud, your grandmother will have me by the neck."

Charlie started to talk to her grandfather and Ruby slowly faded into the background a bit. That was fine by her, a certain snow haired boy was on her mind, and he didn't make a very good conversation topic.

* * *

Jack waited for a while on the roof, as it got darker; he sensed a presence that he hadn't felt in for a while now. "Pitch." He growled, standing. "Show yourself."

There was a deep cackle from the woods; the dark trees seemed to loom taller than before. "Getting bolder now, aren't we Jack?"

"Why are you here?" Jack commanded, he gripped his staff in his left hand.

"Now," Pitch said emerging from the shadows of the forest. "That tone makes you seem very manly, Jack."

A huge scythe of black sand solidified into Pitch's hands and before Jack could jump out of the way, he swung it and knocked him to the ground.

Jack hit the snow with a soft thud, he was luck he had made it snow so much in the past few weeks, or else that would've hurt a lot more.

He stood and shook the snow out of his hair, "Thank you." He spit a mouthful of snow out of his mouth and wiped his mouth on the sleeve.

"Does Ruby like it?" Pitch grinned evilly.

Jack froze and ducked as Pitch swung the scythe again. He shot an icicle out of his staff aimed at Pitch's heart, but Pitch batted it away as if it were made of Styrofoam. "Leave her alone." He growled. "What are you doing, Pitch? Why have you come back?"

Pitch shrugged, "Oh you know, I thought we could catch up over a cup of coffee. Just for old time's sake."

Jack straightened up and cocked his head.

Pitch rolled his eyes, "Why do you think I'm back? I'm finishing what I started, and this time I know which guardian to take out first." He pointed his scythe at Jack, "Now if you would kindly leave so I can execute my plan."

Jack raised his eyebrows, "What are you doing here? You're not going to kill me?" he laughed. "How dumb are you?"

"Do I look to be in a joking mood?" Pitch grumbled, "I intend to take you down from the inside, watch you crumble and beg for mercy as you turn. And then I will take down the rest of you. And to do that, thankfully you have given me the perfect opportunity." He motioned to the empty house. "I've come to take the girl."

Jack wasn't about to go and tell Pitch she wasn't there, "You won't touch her." He corrected, holding his staff in a fighting stance.

Pitch sighed, "So be it. You'll go with the hard way."

He crashed his scythe into Jack's side so quickly; Jack hadn't even had time to scream as it cut across his side and chest in a horrible, excruciatingly painful manner. Pitch swung it again and hardly missed his face, Jack put his staff up against the scythe and tried to push it back, but Pitch was too strong. The scythe's blade cut across his jaw and narrowly missed his neck.

Just as Jack thought he was going to black out from pain, a shadow loomed over him. "Jack Frost, the almighty powerful guardian, had been reduced to this?" Pitch scoffed. "With all that blood and smell all over you I almost mistook you as a human!" Pitch cackled. "Perhaps this will be easier than I thought," he smiled to himself.

Jack tried to speak but there was too much blood in his mouth, "Irguhhh…." He moaned trying to say something. Jack spit the contents of his mouth into the snow; the bright red of his own blood in stark contrast of the white untouched snow chilled him. "I won't let you kill me." He choked out.

"Oh, I'm not killing you just yet." Pitch declared. "I still need you."

"Need me for what-"Jack sat up dizzily but Pitch was already gone.

Jack's chest and side ached so badly he could hardly pull himself to the front steps of the cabin. The taste of iron began to fill his mouth again, this time he swallowed it and tried to hoist himself up. If he could just get into Ruby's room, then he would figure out what to do from there. He looked behind himself and saw the trail of blood he had left in the snow. He gripped his side and nearly screamed as he stood up, he waved his staff over the snow and the blood trail was buried under a fresh pile.

He tried to fly to the roof, but was finding major troubles, the more he tried to carry himself, the more pressure there was on his wounds. After a frustrating and excruciatingly painful fifteen minutes, he had gotten onto the roof. He rolled himself to her window, and crawled inside with his last bout of energy. He collapsed onto the floor; the last thing he saw was a picture of a meadow of wildflowers. He smiled to himself as he thought about how excited Ruby must've been when she found the meadow, and then the world went black.

* * *

Ruby returned home later then she thought she would have. All she wanted to do was peel of the layer of makeup she had plastered on and crawl under her warm sheets.

Nothing of what she expected happened.

When she entered her bedroom, Jack was sprawled across the floor, his face was cut up and his sweatshirt was bloody. Her heart raced, what had happened? Was he okay? There were deep gashes across his chest and on his side; Ruby could see how deep it had cut, right down to the bone. She panicked, was he still alive? What would she do? She couldn't tell her parents! She couldn't tell Charlie! Ruby closed the door and kneeled down next to him, she could still hear his heartbeat, it was slow, but there, which was calming in itself.

Ruby hurried to the bathroom and picked up towels and warm water before anyone could see.

She returned to his side and forced his sweatshirt over his head, it stuck to his body and for a moment she thought she would have to cut him out of it. When it finally came off, she could see his pale chest. Before she hadn't noticed his prominent muscles, but now they were perfectly visible in the moonlight. She took a deep breath and soaked one of the towels in the water, she slowly dabbed the gashes with it.

She was lucky enough to not be too squeamish around blood, it wasn't her favorite, but she could swallow her discomfort and deal with it for now.

The wounds must've been awful and hurt greatly, because she could see his pained expression even though he was insentient.

After she cleaned them, she tiptoed downstairs and took gauze from a first aid kit they had downstairs. She also put the bloody towels and his sweatshirt in the washing machine, she would get them later.

Ruby wrapped his chest and side with the gauze carefully, trying now to hurt him to the best of her untrained nursing abilities. She grabbed him under his armpits and dragged him over to her bed, luckily it was low enough for her to hoist him onto it and tuck him in.

She went downstairs and took the sweatshirt and towels from the washing machine and hung them in her closet to dry.

She tucked him in and hurried to get herself ready for bed. Ruby thought about how it was rude to stare, but the greatest thing about staring at a person who was unconscious was that they didn't know you were doing it. She could make out his face in the moonlight perfectly; all his features were prominent from his rosy lips to his ski slope nose, his bare shoulders peeked out from under the sheets.

Ruby tiredly crawled into bed, trying to space out the distance between them. She found herself edging closer to him, and she felt him somehow scooting over to her too. So she gave in and nuzzled into his chest.

He turned over to face her and groaned softly, his side probably hurt. He laid his cheek against the nape of her neck and she shuddered as his cold breath hit her back. He put his arm around her and pressed her against him as if she were his teddy bear. Ruby felt herself blushing, but ignored it. The fact that she felt so safe and sound in his arms, and that it had felt so… right, drove her heart to an unnatural pace.

She smiled and snuggled into him. That night, she didn't have a single nightmare.

* * *

**Sorry guys, I'll try to update soon (in the next 24 hours). REVIEW LIKE THE WIND! I want to know what you think! Thanks for reading!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: This is super short I'm sorry :( I don't know when the next time I'll be updating is, but I have a feeling it'll be in two weeks. Poop exams. My feedback on my last chapter was kinda disappointing, I don't mean to complain, I just got less feedback than usual. So, in order to compensate, please review and tell me what you think of this chapter! Tell me, where do you project it to go from here? And also a big question for everyone: _Do you want Jack and Ruby to have sex?_ You want it? I'll write it! Not now, or anytime soon for that matter, I have it planned out pretty far ahead, but anyway TELL ME! Have fun reading this quick chapter, sorry if I made any mistakes!**

* * *

Jack woke up the next morning with a massive headache, he felt completely warm. He was sweating profusely; he sat up and realized he was in a bed. Not just any bed, Ruby's bed.

He felt a something warm and soft hugging his side, he looked down and saw Ruby sleeping completely sound. Her body wrapped around Jack's side tightly, her hair had fallen over her face and created a veil. He could see it moving back and forth with every warm breath she took.

Jack lied back down and soaked in her features for a while, her cute button nose was hiding under her hair, and he could just make out the outline of her thick eyelashes through the dark brown waves that fell around her, she looked like a portrait, like a doll. She was perfect.

"Ruby…" he touched her face softly, trying to wake her.

Her eyelids fluttered open and when her light blue eyes met his, she smiled warmly. "Good morning,"

His heart fluttered, "What… happened?"

Ruby sat up in bed, "Don't worry we didn't… 'Do anything'." She laughed lightly but Jack's face turned bright red. "How are you feeling?"

Jack looked down; his chest was bare and bandaged. Memories from the night before flooded his mind, he felt bad that he had passed out on her floor without explanation. Last night he was especially weak for some reason, or maybe worse, Pitch had grown stronger. "I was hurt." He said putting a hand on his abdomen, where gauze was wrapped.

"You still are," Ruby said seriously. She put a hand on the back of his neck and on his stomach and tried to lower him back into bed. "You shouldn't exert yourself; you're banged up pretty badly."

Jack laughed and put a hand over hers, "Don't worry about that, I am supposed to be magical aren't I?"

Ruby took back her hand embarrassedly and raised her eyebrows.

He began to undo the bandages despite her protests. Ruby gasped when she saw that the long scar across his chest and sides had healed completely. Only a scar of puckered skin remained. There was no fresh wound still oozing blood, no evidence that the accident had even happened except for the scar.

Her jaw dropped.

Jack smiled, clearly pleased with Ruby's reaction. "See? I'm fine."

"But there was so much blood-"

"Yeah. But what's the point of being immortal if I can get hurt easily? There are some perks to being me." Jack's words were light, but his expression was anxious, he watched her, seeing how she was taking it in. How she was taking the fact of his existence.

She stared at his scar, "Okay, I just have to see something here." She told him. "I just-"she scooted forward and touched the end of her fingers to the scar tissue on his chest. Somehow feeling the puckered firm skin convinced her in a way that his words couldn't. Jack's eyes slid to Ruby's face and away again, his ears were bright red, he was unsure of where to look while she touched his scar. She let her hand linger on his chest for slightly longer than necessary, not on the scar, but on the smooth, Jack-scented skin beside it. "Okay. So what exactly happened last night?"

He made a face; his heart was still racing when she removed her hand. "Oh, are you still having nightmares?" he asked.

She nodded. "I didn't last night, but they've been pretty bad for the past couple of days." This was the first time Jack had noticed the noticeable bags under Ruby's eyes. Had she been losing sleep over Pitch's nightmares? Were they torturing her to that degree? And for a moment Jack was guilty he had woken her from a finally peaceful sleep.

"The voice, I know who it is. He came here last night to get you. You weren't here, but I didn't want him to wait around so I fought him. Obviously I was a little out of shape…" Jack laughed shakily. "But anyways, he left. He's still going to come back though, I don't know when, it could be tonight."

Ruby's eyes widened, "-It's an actual person?"

Jack hadn't meant to scare her. "He's- Don't be scared. He can be dealt with, I've done it once and I can do it again. I don't want you to think that this is some horror movie; he's a typical bad guy, okay? He won't hurt you." He slipped his hand into hers and it warmed him up.

"But he's coming back? How do I avoid this? Should I just never sleep ever again? How am I going to-"

"You can sleep." Jack said, "You should sleep actually, you need it. I can guard you, okay? I'll make sure he doesn't-"

"But I don't want you to get hurt again!" Ruby cried, "Jack you scared me half to death yesterday! What would happen if I had to watch it happen from my window? And I can't do anything about it, can I? Can I do something?"

Jack bit the inside of his cheek, he could always go to the Guardians for help, but they would probably spit in his face for being so stubborn. He couldn't help it though; Ruby was too much for him. Too much to understand, too much for Jack to grasp, too much to look at, too much to take in, too much to think about; Ruby made Jack feel as if he were small, helpless, and weak. He felt like she could shrink him with a single word, or flicker of her eyes. He took a deep breath, "I don't want him to hurt you, and that's exactly what he's planned to do."

Ruby looked down and played with a strand of her hair that was knotted with another. Her bedhead had not yet been tamed; she looked just as cute as usual. "You don't plan on carrying this out forever do you? Him coming to take me and you defending me? For how long will that work? Jack, if you passed out yesterday, this will take weeks- months maybe for you to make an impact, wont it?"

He pouted, "You're underestimating me."

"I'm being realistic." She corrected, and he knew she was right.

"I can try." Jack started, "At least let me, I'll try to talk it over with him next time he comes."

Ruby was quiet for a moment, as if trying to come up with an alternative. "Fine." She said finally. He let out a sigh of relief and she got out of bed. He watched her stretch and yawn, moving around in her tank top and polka dotted pajama bottoms. "You need a shirt." She pointed out.

Jack looked down and realized he was still shirtless. "Right," he laughed. "Do you have my shirt?"

She held up his battered hoodie. "It's a bit roughed up," she pointed out. "I can get you something else."

And without his consent she left the room.

Although he knew he shouldn't, Jack rummaged through her bedside table drawer. He found tons of pictures, which was expected by now, and a familiar looking note. It was the one he had written her to go ice skating. He smiled to himself; it was silly for her to have kept it for all this time.

She returned later with a white t-shirt and a plate of bread in her hands. "Here" She tossed him a white V-neck shirt which he slipped over his head. It was tight around his biceps, but other than that he was fine.

"Thanks." He mumbled, "For everything. And sorry for scaring you."

She looked up from her bread and shook her head, "No problem. Just don't do it again."

He laughed lightly and she smiled at him. "So how are we going to go about doing this?"

"What? Keeping the bad guy from kidnapping me?" When Ruby said it, it didn't sound as menacing as Jack pictured it. "You can just stay here, and then if he comes in, we all have a nice little chat."

His eyes widened. "Your parents-?

"Can't see you." She finished. "And what they don't know won't kill them," she said, pushing open her window. She winced at the blast of cold afternoon air, Ruby backed away from the door, wrapping her arms around herself.

Tonight would certainly be interesting.

* * *

"Are you sleeping?" Jack's voice was barely a whisper, but in the dark room where he didn't belong, it sounded like a shout.

Ruby rolled in her bed toward where he lay on the floor, a dark bundle curled in a nest of blankets and pillows. His presence seemed so strange and wonderful at the same time, Ruby didn't know if she would ever sleep again. "No."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You already have."

He sighed, "Can I ask you _two _questions, then?"

"You already have."

Jack groaned and whacked her with his pillow. "Stop it and be serious!"

Ruby giggled and grinned, her white teeth glowing in the moonlight. "Fine, what do you want to know?"

"You said that the voice mentioned your fate," But it wasn't a question. She could hear the interest in his voice.

She thought about all the things the voice had said to her, "Yeah, it did. Do you know what it had meant?"

Ruby heard Jack stir on the ground, "Er… no. I was hoping the voice would've given you some leads."

She shrugged an apology. "Can I ask you two questions now?"

"You already-"he began to mock her but realized she had outsmarted him. She giggled. "Fine, go ahead."

"Why me? Why are you so interested in _me_? You could've chosen any other person to be interested in, and you choose a bratty, spoiled, weird person like me." She had meant to say it lightly, as a joke, but her words were heavy. They floated in the air for a moment.

"I just-"Jack was cut off by the familiar feeling in the air- fear. "He's here." He whispered. "Quick! Hide in your closet or something; don't make any noise, okay?"

Ruby hopped out of bed and made her way over to her closet quickly; she shut the door and pressed her back against the wall. Her face was hidden by coats.

Almost as if they had come out of thin air, a dark figure walked in from the corner of the room. "I'm sorry Jack," the voice from Ruby's nightmares said coldly. "Had I interrupted something?"

Jack plucked the long staff he seldom used around Ruby off of the floor. "She's not here; you're wasting your time."

The figure chuckled; Ruby could see its shoulders shaking. "You underestimate me, Jack. You think I don't smell the fear I live off of? She's in this room right now, actually. Unless- has she rubbed off on you enough that your fear smells like a human's?" he cackled, Ruby could make out a row of shiny sharp teeth from where she was standing. A chill ran down her spine.

"I won't let you touch her!" Jack swung his staff and hit the shadow in the hip; Ruby could hear the sound from where she was standing.

The figure evaporated and reappeared behind Jack, she wanted to call out for him to notice, but it was far too late. The shadow seemed to do something to Jack, twist his neck or squeeze his shoulder, regardless, Jack fell to the ground, his crumpled figure unable to stand. He was stunned.

"Jack!" Ruby cried out. She immediately regretted it as the shadow turned to face the closet, an evil grin visible.

It evaporated and Ruby wondered if it had left for good.

"Boo." The voice whispered in her ear.

Ruby didn't have enough time to scream; the shadow had already grabbed her shoulders and clamped down her mouth. She couldn't yell for help or lash out, she was truly stuck. The figure began to disappear from the room, walking through the shadows; it was taking Ruby with it.

* * *

**Read the above Author's Note, I NEED YOU TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS! THE FATE OF THIS STORY DEPENDS ON IT! Not actually, but still, some people like that kinda stuff. Thank you for following, favorite-ing, and reviewing! Please review! Thanks for reading!**

**Love Always,**

**Your-Protector**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I'm writing like the wind guys! Hopefully I'll get another chapter up soon since this one is kind of mean of me… you'll see why. Don't fret though; this is certainly not the end! Quick thing: I got many different reactions for the question I asked and have finally decided that I will write something but way far off into the future, and for all of you that are squeamish I will give a fair warning. I'm not making it graphic though, because that doesn't fit this story well. Thank you so much for the AMAZING feedback on the last chapter! I was amazed by it! (Keep it coming please! Haha) Hope you enjoy/are thoroughly confused by this chapter because frankly, I am too. Sorry if there are any errors.**

* * *

"… The Man in the Moon is wrong this time."

They all gasped, "Another Guardian? But another has already been recently inducted…?"

"The Man in the Moon is never wrong." Said another, "He has his own reasoning, he knows what he's doing."

The four Guardians stood in North's workshop, night had fallen and it was eerily quiet. There were no elves or yeti's scrambling about, the only thing that lit the room was the moon's lustrous glow.

"But this is very strange," Tooth flitted.

Sandy nodded, a question mark of golden sand forming above his head.

North sighed sadly and looked at the moon. "I believe, the Man in the Moon thinks that soon there will only be four again, and we'll need someone to take our missing link's place."

The Guardians were all silent. They knew who that missing link would be; it was just a matter of time before it was all over. No one said a word about it though; no one said aloud that Jack may leave them soon. Perhaps they thought that if they said it aloud it would really happen, either way it felt safer to only believe it was a worst-case scenario.

Even though it wasn't.

As they spoke, the end was near.

* * *

Ruby woke up with an awful crook in her neck. She was on the floor. She stirred and sat up where she was. She wasn't at home; she couldn't pull up the covers over her cold feet. She was in a cage.

"Ah, the princess has finally woken up." The voice from Ruby's nightmares cooed tauntingly.

Ruby's heart sped up, where was she? Had the voice captured her like Jack was afraid it would? Then it hit her, everything that had happened last night. Really she should've been brainstorming a way to escape, but there was one thing on her mind. Was Jack okay?

She stood up quickly and got a head rush. There was nothing to see, the cage was pitch black. Ruby walked forward until she hit a thick set of metal bars, this was exactly like a cage, or a jail cell. From outside the cell she could see a small window that poured out a fracture of light.

Ruby wanted to be as close to it as possible, but the width of her cell didn't reach far enough. Her skin crawled, she could hear a loud ringing noise in her ear that wouldn't go away and it felt as if something was touching her. Like thousands of bugs were crawling over her or as if three pairs of hands were moving up and down her body.

"Are you doing that?" she demanded. "Stop."

The dark figure appeared within centimeters of her face, "I'm not doing anything."

She jumped back, surprised, but then scooted forwards closer to the light. "Then what's touching me?" she hugged her arms around her body and tried to rub off whatever was touching her. "And what's that irritating ringing noise?!" she almost shouted.

The noise became much louder, and then it stopped entirely. The shadow's smug smile became an evil grin, "You haven't been listening closely enough."

Ruby gulped, the ringing in her ears began again. "What- what are you saying?"

"If you are patient enough, you can hear past the ringing. What you will hear instead are voices whispering to each other, murderous, jealous voices. They will silence themselves quickly, but with enough practice, I'm sure even a mundane like you will be able to become more adept at catching and interpreting what these voices say. However, you must be careful," he mocked. Ruby could tell by the tone of his voice this would be the cherry on top, "there is no such thing as a voice without a body." He whispered.

Ruby gulped, "But what-"

"And when you start noticing them," he interrupted. "They will start noticing you."

He cackled and his figure disappeared from Ruby's vision. She shivered at the thought of the stretching darkness behind her. There were thousands of questions still unanswered. "What business do you have with me," Ruby said as loudly as she dared, her voice quavered. "Show yourself, I'm not afraid of you."

"Yes you are!" he cackled from behind her.

She jumped and spun around quickly. He had nearly scared her to death, "You haven't answered my question." Ruby tried to keep her voice leveled, but was failing intensely.

"I'm defeating Jack Frost." The voice said, "By taking you and eliminating you, I will send him into a never ending darkness, and he will turn."

Ruby felt as if he had just spoken gibberish, "What does that even mean? And why are you taking me? I've got nothing to do with Jack."

"Oh but sweetheart," the shadow walked into the light now and Ruby could finally get a better look at him. He tilted her chin up with his cold, gray hand, "You have everything to do with Jack Frost."

Ruby forced her chin away from his grip swiftly, "Don't touch me. I want answers, what are you?"

"I am what fear itself fears." He smiled contently, "I am what humans like to call the boogeyman, but I prefer Pitch Black."

Ruby scoffed and rolled her eyes, "Pitch Black? I just won't call you anything. You're going to tell me why you want to destroy Jack, and then you're going to explain everything else you haven't explained to me, and then you're going to let me go, okay? And in return we will never see each other ever again."

Pitch Black shook his head, "I'll explain everything to you, but I certainly won't let you go, I'm just waiting on Jack to get here so I can kill you in front of him, that is the proper reaction I'm anticipating."

Ruby sucked in a breath, she needed to stall. "Well then, get on with it. I want an explanation."

Pitch Black rolled his eyes discontentedly, "All you mundanes are the same, pushy pushy." He sighed. "I was once-"for once the King of Fear seemed to be afraid himself. "-a Guardian."

Ruby almost choked on a laugh, "Impossible! What would you do to help children?"

He put up a hand to silence her and she stopped, "As I was saying," he said annoyed. "I was a Guardian, I didn't have the same power as I do now, I was such a weak little thing back then." He shook his head as if embarrassed by it, "Anyways, I had a different power; I was meant to fight alongside Sandy in order to guaranteed the children dreamt safely. Let me tell you one thing, darling," Pitch Black closed his eyes and smiled as if remembering something sweet, "All guardians have their weaknesses."

Ruby opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but he went on anyway.

"All the others have gone past their weak stages long ago, ah, I've forgotten to explain what a weakness is. The Man in the Moon creates a bond of fate between a mundane and a Guardian, the Guardian can either succumb to the bond and have lasting pain, or they can fight it until the bond disappears. I was one of those to succumb." Ruby shifted on her feet, she wasn't quite sure what all this had meant. She and Jack were bonded to each other? Is that what it meant?

"So what happened?" She felt on the edge of her seat, maybe Pitch Black could be reasoned with if he was willing to give his story away.

"She was a pretty mundane like you, quite young, but back then I was young too. I became so infatuated with her, that when she passed away, well, it tore me apart. Just as the others had told me it would. Nothing seemed great anymore, I had no wish to help people anymore, and I only wanted to spread my darkness. I didn't want to see anyone happy; I wanted everyone to suffer through the darkness with me. When I finally realized that this darkness was nowhere near leaving, I surrendered to it, and turned." He smiled wickedly, "What a great idea that was. I now have so much power I know not of what to do with it all."

"But then what beef do you have with the Guardians?" Ruby was beyond confused.

"Pardon?" he wasn't familiar with the term.

"Why do you still want to bring down the Guardians?" she asked, rewording it for him.

His brows furrowed and his face contorted with rage, "The Guardians are corrupt, naïve, and hardly as innocent as they come by." He said with acid in his voice. "They strive on the fact that children believe in them, and carry themselves with such pompous and pretentious auras that they deserve to be thrown down to the bottom for once. I would like to see what happens when they are finally the ones who aren't believed in, they need to have their turn, I've had mine already!" he said furiously. "It's been my turn for 200 years!"

Ruby held onto the metal bar behind her, afraid of his fury.

"And finally," he went on, not noticing Ruby's look of horror. "Finally I come so close I can almost taste the feeling of being on top, and then they bring in that icy slag Jack Frost!" he spat.

Ruby was aware he had an accent, but didn't know he used British terms as well.

"They defeat me, using the last child on earth that's dumb enough to believe that those foul intended burnouts are sincere in every which way. What a joke humans are! Dumb enough to believe that four magical creatures will protect the wellbeing of every child?!" he scoffed. "Your race may as well raise their children in a cage of lions."

Ruby gulped, Pitch Black was as subtle as an earthquake. His intentions of incasing everyone with his darkness was still an ongoing dream, even if he wasn't aware. "So why do you want me?" she dared to ask.

He looked at her astonished, like he had forgotten there was someone else there. "You are my key."

The comment had taken her aback so much that her eyes had widened.

"You, I must thank you, came along. You were Jack's bond, his perfect fit. You two were destined to be together, it was brought along by fate." He explained.

"How can you prove that?" Ruby countered, it upset her a little for some reason that this was the reason she and Jack had had such a strong connection.

"Usually the Guardian will have some sort of oddly shaped birthmark that they share with the mundane they are bonded to." Pitch explained hastily.

Ruby thought for a moment, did she have any peculiar birthmarks? Nothing came to mind, unless there was one on her butt, but she doubted that.

"As soon as Jack's bond is eliminated, he will go spiraling into the darkness I once had to overcome. He will submit to it and turn; we will join forces and bring down the rest of the Guardians. Incasing the world in a beautiful blanket of fear and pitch blackness." He smiled wickedly, "Doesn't it sound wonderful?"

Something had formed in the back of Ruby's throat, she tried to swallow it, but it stayed swelling. She had experienced this feeling before, it was hatred. "You have no right," she narrowed her eyes. "You have no right to drive people to this extent. It's your own fault you became like this isn't it? As a guardian you were believed in just as much as them! You didn't have to leave, and now you have this notion of exacting revenge on the Guardians when they did nothing to you! They were doing their jobs and you are just a bitter, jealous being." Ruby spat.

Pitch Black's eyes grew dark. "Say that again," he grabbed Ruby's throat in one hand and pinned her against the metal bars. They dug into her spine and his grip on her neck was choking her.

Ruby struggled to release his grasp; she clamped both of her hands on his and dug her fingernails into his hand. He didn't draw back, not a single reaction.

"I was going to wait for Jack to come," he grumbled. "But let's just do this now."

Ruby felt her head getting lighter and lighter. Dizziness overcame her; she couldn't breathe in his grip. Her hands fell to her sides and the last thing she saw was darkness.

* * *

**Wow I'm a horrible person. Review what you think will happen next! Is Ruby dead? Who is the new guardian? Will Jack go to the others? What happened to Jack?! Where is Jack?! *dies***

**Drop me a review about what you think! Thanks so much for reading, following, favorite-ing, and reviewing!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: All the nice reviews I got made me smile and feel all warm inside so I went and wrote the fattest chapter I have **_**ever **_**written. I hope you like it! And for some of you that guessed, Ruby isn't the new guardian. Hahaha fooled ya! But actually, a lot of shits gonna go down soon, I can't wait to write it (*cracks knuckles and thinks is a badass*)! Hopefully this will hold you over until I'm done with my exams, I should probably start studying because I have six next week and all I've been doing in class is writing down ideas for fanfiction :/ hopefully it has paid off! Oh and if anyone is Spanish: Hola! Te quiero mucho por que estas leyendo mi historia! No puedo escribir espanol muy bien por que no puedo hablar muy bien. Mi padre es chileno, debo entender espanol jajaja yo soy muy floja. (if you can speak English and understand how badly I speak Spanish… yeah, I should probably know more than what I actually know). At least I have a successful Fanfic! I literally cannot express how much all the support and excitement I have received over this is driving me forward. Without everyone's excited reviews and follow and favorite alerts I wouldn't have been very consistent or excited about uploading this fic, and if you are still reading this Author's Note (I don't blame you if you're not I have a babbling problem), I love you. SO MUCH. This Fic is yours as much as mine. Enjoy this super long chapter! It's all for you!**

* * *

Jack woke up in a very scary pool of blood. His head and neck hurt and it took him a couple of minutes for his mind to find itself.

Pitch had broken Jack's neck. It wasn't enough to kill Jack, but it had seriously wounded him. He wondered how long it had been since he had last been awake. His mind tingled and demanded him to get up and search for Ruby. Poor Ruby, she had been taken by Pitch.

Jack sat up abruptly; she had been taken by Pitch! Jack's body ached and protested as he stood and took his staff, he pondered if he had enough time to go to the other guardians. No, he didn't. And he couldn't, they would mock him for being wrong about this whole situation. It was Jack's fault Ruby was in this predicament, and he needed to get her out before it was too late.

* * *

Ruby woke up with a breath of cold air. She was alive.

Her body shook with fear and cold. She didn't know where Pitch Black was hiding, but she didn't want him to know she was still alive.

Slowly, Ruby lifted her hand to her throat. The slightest touch maid her recoil, it was definitely bruised badly. Every breath of cold air that went down her throat burned, she needed water. How long had it been? How many days?

Ruby wondered if Jack was coming for her. She decided that he probably knew what Pitch was doing, that he was just holding Ruby hostage in order to lure Jack to him. He was probably too smart for that.

There was a loud crash of what sounded like rocks scratching against each other and a large cloud of dust formed, making Ruby's view obscured. From where she lay curled up in a ball, she faced into the oblivion of darkness in her cell. The dust cleared and she could see a small, yet promising space of light. It was about as big as a brick.

"Ruby," she heard a familiar voice whisper. The voice didn't make her cringe, it didn't make her upset or scared. It was Jack's voice, his deep voice that made Ruby feel warm and safe inside.

She squinted and saw his icy blue eyes through the opening, maybe she had spoken too soon. Maybe Jack wasn't as smart as she gave him credit for.

"Thank goodness you're alright," he breathed.

Ruby couldn't move, she felt cemented to the ground. All her limbs felt like they were going to fall off and her head hurt so bad that things were beginning to blur. She tilted her head to try and see if Pitch was behind her, but her neck was so stiff and sore that when it moved she almost shrieked out of pain.

"Don't worry," she heard Jack say. "He's not here right now, but he'll be coming back soon." He remarked.

Ruby looked at Jack sadly and opened her mouth for what felt like the first time in ages, "Why did you come," she croaked.

He cocked his head and Ruby once again felt victimized by his cuteness, "Why wouldn't I come? I had to save you." He said simply, obviously he hadn't seen her wounds yet. She could tell he was straining his voice to make it even. Even he was scared. "Can you get to me from where you are? I'll try to make the opening bigger."

Ruby put her hands onto the ground and tried to hoist herself up as if she were doing a push up. Her arms were visibly shaking as she sat up and began scooting towards him.

Jack laughed but when she came into view, his face fell. Ruby had massive bags under her eyes, bruises in the shape of hand marks littered her neck, her skin was a shade paler than it should have been and her lips were a bluish purple. Not only was she horribly hurt, she was nearing hypothermia.

Jack helped her through the small opening he had made. As soon as they were outside the cell, Jack led her through Pitch's maze of a fortress. She only made a couple of feet before looking like she was about to pass out. Jack insisted carrying her for the rest of the way and while normally, Ruby would have shaken her head in disgust, she was too hurt and tired to disagree.

Jack scooped her up in his arms and began running towards the exit.

Neither of them were too bothered by it, Jack could feel her strained yet steady heartbeat against his body which willed him to move forward whilst Ruby wrapped her arms around him and snuggled into the warmth of his body. She was so cold that even Jack Frost was a few degrees warmer than her.

His arms were wrapped tightly around her, as if he was afraid to let her go, afraid to see her in such a delicate and fragile state.

Jack broke out of Pitch's lair just in time as Ruby fell unconscious; too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer.

* * *

Ruby woke up the next morning in her bed.

She sat up and the fatigue and soreness her body had been under before had been eliminated. Had it all been a nightmare? The whole kidnapping?

She rose from her bed and crossed the room to her mirror, no, the bruises were still there. It had all been real.

This meant she owed her parents an apology, and she owed Jack a huge thanks.

But for now, she was going to return to bed and sleep longer because frankly, she could hardly stand without feeling a bit dizzy.

When she got back in bed, she noticed a pale hand gripping the sheet tightly. She looked over the bed and saw Jack.

Jack was asleep; Ruby wondered if he was in pain, because his face looked like he was quite hurt. Ruby didn't know what it was, since Pitch Black hadn't been around to fight them when Jack rescued her. She remembered the night she had been taken, the way Jack had crumpled to the ground, and she realized that he was probably still recovering from it.

She touched his hand and his eyes opened immediately. Ruby blinked a couple of times and felt her face get hot. He wound his fingers through hers subconsciously and continued to stare at her. His expression was blank; he looked like he was pondering words.

"I'm sorry." He said simply.

Ruby's heart fluttered, she had many things to say to him, and of all things she began with: "I have to go to the bathroom."

He made a low noise that seemed to be a chuckle as Ruby got up and shuffled to her bathroom.

When she was in the bathroom, she heard a small knock on the door. "Ruby?" her mother called, "Is that you?"

Ruby stopped washing her hands and looked at herself in the mirror. Bruises covered her arms and neck, there was no way she could explain this to her parents.

Her mother persisted, "Ruby?" she knocked louder.

Ruby's eyes widened and she thought fast, "Uh- yeah! I'm taking a shower!"

"Where have you been?" her mother asked. "You weren't here yesterday!"

Ruby bit her lip; she had been gone for a day? That's all? It had felt like a year! "I was outside all day, I was taking pictures."

She heard her mother give a defeated noise; it was her mother's specialty. "Well we all went out to see a movie as a family! We missed you! What time did you get in?"

Ruby wracked her brain to think fast, it still lagged with fuzziness. "Late." She said quickly, "I mean- did you see the moon yesterday? It was amazing, I couldn't pass that up!"

Another defeated sigh, "Okay, well you must be tired, do you want anything to eat?"

"No, I'm fine." Ruby lied, she was starving. But she had peppermint bark in her room from Christmas, she would eat that. "I'm really tired though, so I think I'm just going to go back to sleep."

"Alright sweetheart," her mother surrendered uncharacteristically. "Let me know if you need anything."

When she heard her mother's footsteps retreating, she zoomed out of the bathroom quickly and into her bedroom. She locked the door quickly and looked at the bruises again, they were a tender greenish purple. It literally looked like someone had choked her; the bruises formed a hand mark. And along her arms were random bruises and scabs Ruby didn't even know how she had gotten, she presumed it was the voices of the ringing noise Pitch Black had talked about.

"Are you okay?" Jack's worried voice came from behind her.

Oh right. He was still there. Ruby's heart fluttered as he looked at her protectively. "Yeah, I just don't know how I'm going to explain this to my parents."

Jack stood and made his way over to her. He turned her arms over and stared at them for a long time. "I'm so sorry this happened to you," he seemed at loss for words.

"I swear I'm fine," she assured him. "I just can't let my parents find out that's all-"

"No." Jack shook his head, "This wouldn't have happened if I had just managed to fight Pitch off. I wasn't paying attention, and you got hurt because of my stupidity… I-"

"Don't." Ruby shook her head, "Don't beat yourself up like that, he hurt you really badly. I know, I saw it happen. All that matters is that I'm alive." She reached out and touched Jack's neck.

It sent shivers down his spine as her soft hand made its way to the back of his neck, it brushed against where Pitch had twisted his neck and he cringed.

"What did he do?" she asked, her focus on him.

He pushed her hand away, although he didn't want to. "Nothing- I mean-"he sighed. "He just twisted my neck, it would have been fatal if I was human, but that's no excuse. I should've fought him back."

Ruby did something unexpected, she rolled her eyes. "Cut the crap."

Jack blinked.

"I don't care if you're guilty about it. That doesn't matter at all, to me at least. You shouldn't worry about it either. But you're saying that he _broke your neck_ and all you're doing about it is blubbering about what you _should've _done?" the corners of her mouth turned upwards and Jack knew she was being light. "That's sad."

Jack wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her hard enough that he would disappear. He dropped his smile, "You-"

There was a knock on her door, "Ruby? Are you asleep?"

"They can't leave me alone for one freaking minute." She huffed under her breath. "Give me a second!" she called out.

Ruby made her way over to the closet and pulled something out of a drawer; it was an ugly grey turtleneck sweater. "Don't look." She demanded over her shoulder to Jack.

He blushed furiously and glanced down, only catching a glimpse at her bare back for a split second. His face felt extremely hot.

Ruby pulled her hair out of the tight sweater and let it fall down her back, she answered the door sluggishly. "Yeah?" she yawned, just for good measure.

_Ruby was an excellent sarcastic photographer and a compulsive liar_, Jack joked to himself.

Her father was behind the door, he said a few hushed things to her and she nodded. There was no reluctance in her voice when she answered him, and Jack wondered if for once she wasn't going to be dragged to something she would resent.

She closed the door behind him and lied on the bed, "I forgot today was December 31st." she admitted.

"Is it?" Jack asked, he had known the date, he didn't know why it mattered though. "Why does that matter?"

She sat up and looked stared at him like she wondered why he existed. "It's a new year tomorrow." She informed in annoyed tone. "Also known as the best day to take pictures, and also, fireworks."

"I've never celebrated new years before," Jack scratched his head embarrassedly. "What's there to celebrate?"

Ruby opened her mouth to answer, but stopped herself. She thought about it and laughed, "You know what?" she threw up her arms in surrender, "I really don't know why they celebrate it!" she laughed.

"What is your family doing this year?" he asked, a bit reluctant to know the answer. Surely Ruby would spend time with her family over him.

"I'm free. They're throwing a party here and told me I could do whatever, I think I'm going to go to the beach." She said excitedly. "I'll pack now!" she exclaimed and began to scurry around the room collecting random things.

Jack sat down on the bed, unsure if he had heard correctly. "Why are you going to go to the _beach_?"

Ruby threw miscellaneous items on her bed, "Because that's where everyone has fireworks, duh."

Jack threw up his hands in surrender, "Sorry, I should have known, _obviously_." He said sarcastically.

Ruby laughed from where she was, digging things out of her closet. "So are you going to come with me?" she asked.

"Only if you want me to," Jack said seriously.

"Of course I want you to!" Ruby looked up at him as if it were a silly thing to say.

Jack's heart sped up as she continued to collect things; she had overlooked the power of her comment.

* * *

"My dad is going to think I'm a terrorist." Ruby admitted as she lined up at the cash register to pay for the fireworks she had picked out.

Jack eyed the seemingly harmless boxes of cardboard, "I'm just surprised he gave you the money to pay for all of that." He admitted.

Ruby looked back at him with a crooked smile, "Fireworks are expensive, he said to count it as a part of my birthday present."

In the end, it had totaled up to eight hundred dollars' worth of fireworks. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him." Ruby said before Jack could scold her.

* * *

Ruby pulled into the parking lot by the beach and began to unload all the things she had brought, sparklers, matches, her Polaroid, her tape player, all her mix tapes, sunglasses, and many other random things Jack couldn't make out.

She made sure they sat far from the shore and away from other people; she glanced at her phone screen momentarily. This was the first time Jack had seen Ruby use her phone.

"My parents made me take it," she explained when she caught him looking. "They want to keep in touch with me and make sure I'm safe." She then laughed and rolled her eyes, "Because if I'm a pedophile I'm going to go to the beach to stalk girls."

Jack curled his hands into fists; he didn't want her to look at it that lightly. She did have a potential threat, Pitch could be coming back for her at any second, and Jack was afraid he wouldn't be ready to fight him off.

"It's only ten o'clock," Ruby added. She began to play a tape and pulled out a small firework, "Let's start."

Jack watched closely as she treaded down to the water and set it down in the sand, she lit a match and lit the wick that was sticking out of the firework. She ran up the beach to where Jack was and got her camera ready.

The thing shot into the sky with a deafening cry that Jack wasn't expecting, when he jumped, Ruby giggled. It spiraled high and then seemed to burst into many small explosions of different colors. Jack thought this was an accurate representation of what it felt like when her lips were on his.

He pushed away the thought quickly, he felt guilty thinking of those things. It was quite selfish of him; he had other things he had to worry about before that. For example, Ruby's safety.

A group of people had collected not too far away from them and began to cheer as the firework ended. Jack was worried that they might take interest that Ruby was alone, Jack couldn't be seen. And so, he virtually wasn't a threat.

Ruby took the picture from her Polaroid and stared out it, "Wow this came out great!" she passed it to Jack and their fingers brushed for a second. Just long enough to make his heart skip a beat.

She had captured the moment perfectly, "Can I keep this?" he asked.

"Sure!" she grinned. "Should we light another? Or keep them for later?"

"Uh, maybe later." He didn't want her to draw too much attention to herself.

"Okay." She plopped herself down in the sand and began to roll up her pants, exposing her feet.

Jack watched her as she hummed along to the song and buried her feet in the soft sand. He shouldn't have invited himself to go to breakfast with her that morning three weeks ago, he shouldn't have gotten as interested as to why she was always in a bad mood, he shouldn't have fallen so hard for Ruby.

Ruby lit a sparkler and looked for something in the bag she brought, "Here," she handed Jack what looked like a plastic telescope that you could win at an arcade, or the ones that came in kid meals at fast food restaurants. "It's a kaleidoscope." She explained, eyeing his confused expression. "Look through it and turn the knob."

Jack did as instructed and aimed it at Ruby. He turned the knob and saw the face of eight equally beautiful and pretty Rubys spinning around in the light of the sparkler. It looked like her face was on a merry-go-round. It was exciting, and fun to look at. "Why don't they make these as lenses? You should take a picture like this."

She raised her eyebrows, "That's the best idea I've ever heard!" she laughed, "Can I invent that? Has that already been invented? I could invent it and drop out of high school on my billion dollar invention!"

Jack laughed.

"What?" she asked, "I'll try, maybe I won't make _billions_ but it's definitely worth a couple million." She actually seemed serious, which made Jack chuckle.

They spent a long time talking. Jack had attempted to explain how he had become a Guardian, and explained all the fights and hardships he had gone through to defeat Pitch. And after his whole rant, all Ruby said was 'That would make a really good Disney movie.'

He didn't understand what it had meant, but he knew she had meant to be funny and so he laughed.

Ruby explained what Disney was and she explained movies and TV to him. He couldn't grasp the fact that those things were fake and it was just people acting.

"I'll give you an example." Ruby thought for a second. "… American soap operas do this." She laughed before beginning, "In dramatic situations, the actors will close their eyes really slowly and then reopen them. They stay in the same place, with the same predicament, but things change. There is no way out, and a plan materializes for them. The episode will always end in resolution or another problem. It's really dumb."

"And people watch it for fun?" he asked. Jack couldn't grasp the idea of 'entertainment' as well as he should have.

She nodded, "But mostly housewives having a midlife crisis." She explained. "There are many people who don't have time for them, so they record the shows. My mother is like that, she doesn't watch any shows, she just records them."

Jack laughed, he felt a lot closer to Ruby. Like he could reach over and kiss her if he wanted to and she wouldn't be mad about it. Jack angered himself again, _Stop thinking about that you dumbass!_ He shouted at himself.

They continued to talk about things of little importance, Ruby talked on animatedly whilst Jack stared at her features. Remembering every freckle and smile line on her face, he wanted to reach out and touch her face. He wanted to close his eyes, and lean in and kiss the reddish pink lips that kept moving and smiling and driving him crazy.

"…and then when I finished the book I literally, are you listening? You're not even listening. Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex-"

"What?" Jack's head shot up, "What just happened?"

Ruby laughed and Jack felt his face get hot; thank the moon she couldn't see him blushing furiously in the night air. "You're not listening to me; I don't want to waste my breath."

"That's not true!" Jack protested, "I was listening!"

"Oh really?" Ruby cocked her head, "What was the last word I said?"

Jack wanted to bury his head in the sand.

She laughed, "I won't make you do that." She glanced down at her phone, "We should start lighting up the fireworks, it's almost midnight."

He mentally thanked the god who made Ruby decide to change the subject.

Jack helped her carry all of the fireworks down to where they were going to be lit, Ruby was jumping around excitedly and Jack didn't have the heart to tell her the noise fireworks made were the worst he had heard in his life. Her smiling face was enough to cancel it out.

Ruby waited until it was exactly 11:59:50 and grouped all of them together. "It's going to be a huge show!" she struck a match. "As soon as I drop this, book it to where we left all the stuff, okay?"

Jack nodded and Ruby grinned widely. She dropped the match in her giant pile of explosives. "Run!" she yelled, she could hardly gain traction on the sand and was as slow as she normally would be walking.

Jack pulled her hand and they sat down on the sand and watched as all of the fireworks erupted into one giant lightshow, the group of people that had collected a few feet away began to countdown.

"I'm really happy I met you, Jack." Ruby said turning to him. His heart almost stopped, at that moment, Jack knew it. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her so much. Ruby was the best thing. She was wonderful and beautiful and sensitive and funny and sexy. She was too good for him; she was too good for anyone.

"…FIVE!" The group called out together. The fireworks were shrieking and shooting out small curlicues that flew ten feet in all directions.

"I'm really happy I met you too, Ruby." He gulped. He wanted to let her know in the best way possible, _I love you more than the snow, and I am a big fan of snow. _It was corny and he didn't want to say it, but being in love with Ruby had made him corny. He wished he could tell her, _I will happily wait forever for you._ But he felt like she would laugh and say something along the lines of, 'waiting forever would be a waste of our young bodies.'

"…THREE!" The group cried. The fireworks were beginning to shoot up and make climatic noises; Ruby had timed it just right.

She looked at Jack and blinked. A moment passes where Jack is wondering what she's thinking about and she's wondering what he's thinking about.

"TWO!" At this point, the sound of a champagne bottle popping open is little and musical compared to the screeching the pile of fireworks are beginning to make.

"ONE!"

Ruby reached out and brushed his over grown bangs out of his eyes. He closed his eyes at her touch. He didn't know how many times he'd dreamt of it. He had always thought about her, her bright blue eyes, her long dark hair, her fair skin, they all combined to create one person who was persistently invading all of Jack's thoughts with no sign of stopping.

Her gaze flickered down to his lips and his breath almost caught. For a second, he was going to scold himself again for not focusing on protecting her. But he buried the thoughts deep inside of himself, all that mattered was that he was with Ruby and she cared about him and her face was literally so close he could feel her breath of his face.

Ruby's bright blue eyes looked up to meet his. He moved towards her, and for the third time, the rest of the world fell away until it was just them, as if they stood on a spotlighted stage in an empty auditorium. She had stopped biting her lip, and her cheeks were flushed, barely visible in the spluttering lights that were emitted from the crying fireworks. He had never wanted like this before. There had always been girls, he had liked girls before Ruby. He had asked himself, in the dead of night, staring at the sky littered with stars and one giant moon, what made Ruby so different. She was beautiful, but other girls were beautiful. She was smart, but there were other smart girls. She understood Jack, she laughed when he laughed, and saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jack Frost more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him. But still, maybe, he could find all that somewhere else. People fell in love, and lost, and moved on. He didn't know why he couldn't. He didn't know why he didn't even want to.

His mouth came down on hers. And that was it.

All the self-control he'd exerted in the four weeks he'd know her went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him, and she was soft and pliant but surprisingly strong like no one else he'd ever held. His hands flattened against her back, pressing her against him, and she had scooted as close to him as possible, kneeling in the sand, she was kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her. He flicked his tongue along her lips, opening her mouth under his, and she tasted as sweet as the other two times he had tasted her before. He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair. His hands slid down to her waist, and he was pulling her against him, lost in the sensations that spiraled through his nerves and blood and bones, and he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it hadn't been for her phone to begin bleating a loud and annoying tune.

She answered the phone rather breathlessly, "Hello?"

She wouldn't look at Jack as she talked to her mother on the other line. She drew small pictures of hearts and stars in the sand with her finger and the fireworks were still going on. The group was cheering and kissing and drinking and smoking, Ruby should be getting home soon.

"I have to go now." She said, putting her phone back into her pocket. "If you could just help me with my stuff…"

She still wouldn't look at him, her face was scarlet, Jack could already tell.

When she slammed the trunk down on all the things she had loaded up, Jack spoke up. "I'll just go on my own; I have to talk to the others anyway. You know, say Happy New Year and stuff…"

"Oh okay." Ruby looked rather relieved, as was he, he didn't know if the car ride would be awkward or have a layer of tension. "I guess I'll see you later then."

She leaned in and kissed Jack on the cheek, something he was not expecting.

Her lips were as soft on his face as they were on his own lips.

As Ruby drove away, Jack turned toward the dark parking lot, feeling more alive and more happy and more afraid than he ever had been in his three hundred years of existence.

* * *

"You said you had the girl." The dark figure spat.

"Yes milord, she was here, it must've been Jack Frost who came to get her." Pitch mumbled, "Don't worry, I'll retrieve her again. The task isn't difficult."

"If the task isn't difficult, why couldn't you get it right the first time?!" the silhouette bellowed. "I can't waste my time with you, Pitch Black, you ask for my services and I agree to help you and this is what I get? A prolonged deadline? It is not even in my slightest interest to be bothered with your childish endeavors!"

"My deepest condolences, Father." Pitch said nervously, "I will find her as soon as possible."

"Alert me when you have her, I will finish the task for you then." The shadow crossed the room and gave the King of Fear a look that sent a chill down his spine, "Until then…"

There was a puff of smoke and the shadow had seemingly evaporated from the air.

Pitch walked over to the cell where he had kept Ruby, he grabbed onto the metal bars and bent them in a nervous rage. He made a short, angry noise.

"You want to play like that Jack?" Pitch chuckled. He walked over to the window, the moon shone brightly and full. "I can beat you at your own game."

* * *

***gasp* who was that mysterious figure? Why is Pitch being so respectful? Pitch is supposed to be a bitchy poopface, does this person scare him that much? What is he planning to do with Ruby? Why didn't he just kill her? Review with what you think! Or just review what you think about the chapter, I think that's what the review thing is there for… um… yeah… Sorry if there are any errors, I'm exhausted. BYE!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooo sorry! I've been so busy lately! This chapter is like a filler/reminder that I am still alive and able to write. I'm sorry it's bad and mostly dialogue but it's necessary for story development, whoops. The reason that it's so short is that I PROMISE the next chapter will be super-duper long (I PROMISE), and also what comes next is too long to fit in here so it's a separate chapter. Ok, love you all for reviewing, favorite-ing, following, and being tolerant with me and this story. Whew!**

* * *

"Come back and say 'Happy New Year' when you actually listen to a word we say, would you?!" Bunnymund drew his boomerangs out and aimed them at Jack angrily.

"Hey!" Tooth flew in between the two, "No need to be like this!" She laughed nervously, "We can all get along, right?" she cast her eyes to North as if asking for help.

North blinked and unfolded his arms; he pushed Jack back from his fighting stance. "She's right, you two need to behave yourselves. Now we're going to have to sort out this situation maturely and seriously-"

"We can just kill the girl, that'll fix it." Bunnymund said to Sandy.

Sandy wove a suggestion of freezing Jack for a couple more centuries out of golden sand.

"I think this calls for something less dramatic," Tooth smiled sincerely. "Jack, you realize that you've put her in danger. Pitch could be after her right now!"

Jack looked down at his bare feet and tried to memorize the wood panels of North's workshop floor. "I know. That's why I've come to you guys, I need your help."

"Well you can count me out." Bunnymund said bitterly. "I-we all warned you about this and you didn't listen! Now if this dumb girl gets in trouble, you'll turn and we'll have a full scale catastrophe on our hands!" he threw up his arms in distress.

The others eyed him warily and nervously, as if he'd said something he shouldn't have.

"What the hell is turning?!" Jack asked, frustrated. "You all have been talking about it and dreading it for all this time and I'm still not sure what it could remotely mean!"

Tooth looked at North and bit her lip; he looked at Bunnymund who looked at Sandy who looked at Tooth. They all had the same look of uncertainty. "I suppose he deserves to know." North mumbled.

"He's of age." Bunnymund nodded.

Tooth looked like she was going to object, but closed her mouth.

"There comes a time in a Guardian's life that is very treacherous, their feelings are escalated and they are blinded by a certain amount of vulnerability." North started, he looked to the other guardians as if asking if this were a good start. They nodded and he continued, "In this time, they will get some sort of marking on their skin, mine was an eight pointed star on my wrist, Sandy's was a perfectly round circle on the left side of his forehead, Tooth's was a small heart on a feather on her shoulder, and Bunnymund has not gone through this time period yet. That's fine, the time periods are sporadic for every Guardian, I went through mine quite recently and I'm the oldest here. You seem to be going through it quite young for a Guardian." He noted.

Jack bit the inside of his cheek, "What does this have to do with turning?"

North ignored him, "A way to know about this time period is that the Guardian will find a 'significant other', in other words, the Guardian will fall in love. This love was designed by The Man in the Moon to be 'love at first sight', the partner being a human. We aren't sure why this has been designed at all; we think it's a test of loyalty or focus. Anyways, as a Guardian, you aren't meant to succumb to the yearning, you are meant to overcome it and ignore it. I think you are the first Guardian to ever pursue the bond."

"There was another-"Bunnymund stopped himself quickly as soon as the others shot him looks.

"That's a story for another day." North said hastily before Jack could inquire. "If you succumb to the bond, you become infatuated and it is like a sickness. There is nothing else but that significant other. You forget your duties and your world is surrounded with thoughts only regarding the human. But humans," North sighed. "Are mortal. And so, when your bond does indeed, die, darkness will encase you where the light in your heart once was. It will drive you to insanity and you will no longer be Jack Frost, you will be an empty shell of a former Guardian. There will be evil instead of mirth, sadly. If Pitch gets his hands on the girl, he could kill her and speed up the process of your turning."

Jack's eyes widened. Pitch was going to kill Ruby. Pitch was going to kill Ruby. Ruby would _die_. If something as simple as feeling her skin against him drew fireworks out of him, imagine what that would be like. He didn't want to imagine. "So, this is inevitable? I will turn eventually?"

They all looked at each other sadly, "Er... looks like it." Tooth said worriedly.

"How did you all get over it? How did you not turn?" Jack pressed, "Maybe that'll work for me?"

"We didn't pursue the bond." North stated. "You did, there's no telling how you can get out of this. If you turn, you could go to Pitch's side unconsciously and we could be brought down."

"Then there's only one thing we can do," Bunnymund stated gruffly. "We need to keep the gal safe."

"You were the one who was all reluctant and upset in the first place," Jack said gruffly and annoyed.

"What can I say," he shrugged. "That sounded way less appealing than it did in my head; I would rather not get ruined by an ice fairy."

"_Ice fairy_?" Jack spat. "Sounds funny coming from an Easter kangaroo."

"Say that again," Bunnymund challenged, stepping towards him.

"Wow ok." Tooth and Sandy rushed between them. "That escalated very quickly." Tooth laughed nervously.

Sandy made an annoyed expression.

"Wait a second," Jack stepped back and Tooth and Sandy unstiffened from their stance. "I don't have any markings on me." He pondered.

"Yes you do," Tooth stated. "I'm looking at it." She flitted over to him and touched the side of his neck, "It's a little tiny five pointed star. Huh. I wish I'd gotten that one."

The Guardians all nodded in appreciation, "Um, excuse me." Jack shook them away from staring at his neck. "Ruby doesn't have that though; she doesn't have a star on her neck."

"How would _you_ know?" Bunnymund asked. "Oh," he said quietly. "I hadn't realized you were that far along-"

"NONONONO!" Jack shouted, blushing furiously. "We haven't-! I mean, I've just seen the back of her neck before and she doesn't have a star or anything on her neck, not even a freckle."

Tooth made a face, "Geez you sound so creepy when you talk about her. Sweet, but creepy, it gives me toothache."

Sandy laughed.

"Are you sure?" North seemed to be the only who was carefully noting the importance of this situation. "How about this," he crossed the room and looked at a remote controlled car a yeti was working on, he nodded, admiring the work before whispering "paint it blue" to the hardworking yeti. It let out a cry of frustration and banged its head against the table, behind its chair sat what had to be 50 or so RC cars in red. "Go back to her and tell her, see if she has the birth mark and keep her safe. You have a couple of days and then there is going to be a new Guardian coming, so you have to be there for the ceremony."

Jack perked his ears and looked up, "A new Guardian? Since when?"

"Well lover boy, you've been so caught up in dooming us all that you failed to come to the meeting where the Man in the Moon decided on a new Guardian. They're supposed to show up next week, we don't know anything about them." Bunnymund crossed the room and patted the ground with his foot, a tunnel opened. "I've got things to do so if you won't excuse me, I'm going to go plan out which will possibly the last Easter _ever_. Thank you Jack." He added sarcastically, he jumped into the hole and disappeared.

"He's just bitter about all this," Tooth tried to comfort Jack. "I think he's embarrassed that the bond hasn't come onto him yet."

"What will that matter if the guardians are nonexistent?" Jack asked, "This is all my fault, I should have listened, I just- I can't stay away from her. It just- I feel like I was blind before I met her, you know? Everything just seemed so clear and open and I felt like I knew everything and could do anything. Well of course you guys know, you experienced it too." He turned to the remaining three who all had looks of confusion.

"Well," Tooth twiddled her thumbs. "When I was under the bond I actually felt quite restricted."

Sandy nodded as if agreeing.

"I remember feeling disoriented." North added.

"I feel disoriented," Jack agreed. "But in a good way."

"I can't say I felt that way." North said discerningly. "I remember the whole feeling being very intoxicating and poisonous. It was pulling me towards it, but I was unsure and concerned."

Jack didn't feel like that with Ruby. He felt new and adventurous and exciting. Maybe he was feeling like this because he pursued the bond. "I'll go to her now." He said looking up.

There was a small silence; Jack began to leave when he heard Tooth say in a small voice. "Don't forget to floss." He laughed, somehow there was always a way to break the silence.

* * *

**Ok well I'm kind of running on low fumes, I'll try and get the next chapter up tomorrow (aka later today if you're a smartass). Much love! Tell me if you think this bond is REAL or FRAUD. If it is fake, any guess who's bonded to Jack? If it's not a bond with Ruby, then what? Any more guesses for the figure in the last chapter? C'mon people, I know you're there, I GOT AN EMAIL THAT SAYS THAT YOU FOLLOW THE STORY, IF YOU CAN CLICK FOLLOW, YOU CAN WRITE A REVIEW. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THE STORY!**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: I'm such a procrastinator wow.**

* * *

Jack rushed back to the small cabin. It had been two days and he hadn't seen Ruby for any of them. For lack of a better word, he was worried.

The cabin looked cold and abandoned. All the lights were off and their car wasn't in the driveway. Jack's heart quickened when he looked into her window and saw nothing. The bed was stripped and all of her things were gone. Had she gone? Where was she? He opened the window and realized she had left it open for him. When he stepped into her room, he saw a small note sitting on her desk.

To: Jack. Was written on the front in a bubbly curly font. Jack opened it and let out a sigh of relief as he read it.

Hey Jack,

Don't worry, my family just went home, I do have other commitments you know, like a life. That was a joke, so don't pretend to be offended by it ;) . Anyway, I really hope we can see each other again. I live in Florida as you know, you said it's too hot for you, will you be alright? Can you visit me at all? I hope you don't die or something if you visit :(. Come soon! I miss you!

XXXXXXXXXX – Ruby

He laughed, when he read the note in his head, her voice read it to him. He turned the note over and saw her address, he needed to find her before Pitch did. Although he was sure the fact that she no longer resided in the place he thought she did would throw him off a bit.

* * *

When Ruby got back home, she was immediately flooded with attention from her old classmates.

"How are you taking this all in?"

"Did he ever say anything to you?"

"Have you talked to Claire yet?"

"What is everyone talking about?!" Ruby cried. The crowd shifted away from her confused, "I haven't been here all of winter break, I don't know what happened."

"You don't know what happened?" A girl whispered. Ruby identified the girl from her Chemistry class.

"Derek died." A boy said grimly. Ruby identified him as one of Derek's jock friends who would antagonize her with him.

Ruby's breath caught a little. _Derek was dead?! _That was a lot to take in. "H-How?" her voice shook.

"There was a fire at his house," the boy went on. At this point the crowd had dispersed; they clearly weren't interested in hearing the story again. "His mom got out fine but his little brother was stuck so he went back in to save him." The boy swallowed slowly, "He got his little brother out, but the ceiling collapsed on him and he didn't survive."

Ruby opened her mouth and widened her eyes; many people had said that Derek became much nicer after he dated Ruby. He still was harsh towards her, but towards others apparently he was nice. Was he a hero now? "How's Claire?" she asked without thinking. Claire was the girl Derek dated after Ruby; they were very serious and seemingly fit. Claire was the most popular girl in school, she was pretty, funny, but had a hideous personality. Derek was obviously only dating her for her status, and she was obviously only dating him for his status.

"She's fine. You look like you're taking it worse than her," he noted motioning to her face.

Ruby hadn't noticed the tears rolling down her cheeks until he pointed them out. "Oh." Ruby sniffed and rubbed her face quickly before anyone else saw. "Don't tell anyone about this." She warned.

He nodded and rubbed her shoulder sympathetically, completely out of character for him. "We're all sad about this; you don't have to hide it." He gave her a small smile and walked to class.

Ruby didn't care much for Derek, but it was just the thought of death. That she could never be able to _see _him again. He would never torment her or remind her of all the bad things that happened with them, but just the thought that he wouldn't spend another day on earth. He wouldn't ever get married, or have kids, or see another movie, or ride on his motorcycle, or go to school, or get a job, or live. He wouldn't live again.

And the fact that Ruby had come so close with death sent a chill down her spine. She wouldn't be able to become a photographer, she wouldn't be able to see the world she had promised her grandfather, and she wouldn't see Jack again. _Jack_.

She wiped more tears from her eyes and composed herself for class.

When she stepped through the door, the whispering stopped and everyone turned to look at her. Her heart was beating quickly, as she sat down. The room was still silent.

The girl in front of her had short curly blonde hair that bounced around her shoulders with ever shake. She was giggling with her friends and pointing to her white high heels and matching purse.

Claire Davis.

The seemingly unfit partner of Derek. They walked around together liked they owned the school, all the girls cowered at Claire, who was very intimidating and all the boys bowed down to Derek, he was dating the hottest girl in the Junior class, plus he had a tattoo.

One of her friends noticed Ruby staring and whispered something to her, she turned to look at Ruby. Her eyes moved up and down over her as if assessing her, she scoffed. "What is it Sullivan?"

Ruby gulped, "Nothing- I mean, how are you coping? With you know er, Derek."

"I'm fine," Claire rolled her brown eyes annoyed. "God everyone is so fucking sensitive about this, I wasn't like, in love with him or whatever. We were just together. I don't really care, whatever."

Ruby was disgusted with her, "How can you say that so lightly?! He's dead!" she almost yelled.

The whole class turned to look at the girls, "Would you shut up!" one of Claire's followers hissed.

Claire held up a well-manicured hand, "Hannah, chill." She looked at Ruby angrily, "Who the hell do you think you are Sullivan? You slept with him in freshman year, get over yourself. You aren't his wife or whatever, and he's dead now. You don't have to pretend like you care, oh, and would you like, lay the fuck off. I don't want to be seen talking to you."

She turned back around her curls bobbing up and down, Ruby caught a whiff of her strong perfume, and it almost made her gag. She wanted to throw a desk at Claire, was it possible for someone to be so insensitive and heartless? Even people that didn't know Derek were upset, and here was supposedly one of the people closest to him, not even giving it a second thought.

Ruby glared at the back of Claire's head for the rest of class, trying to burn her with her eyes. Ruby couldn't even focus on the English lesson about Hamlet.

When she exited the class, she received a couple of comments about sympathy, even though she had only dated him in freshman year and everyone knew they were only using each other.

Ruby felt very empty, and lonely. She wanted someone to be there for her, she needed a hug. She wanted Jack. Even though she wasn't even sure if he could come to her, or if he would after their kiss. Now that Ruby was sure that she liked Jack a lot, more than she had ever liked someone before, she didn't know how to approach him. How would she go on without being awkward? Could she kiss him regularly now? Did this mean they were in a relationship? What does a relationship mean if he's a guardian? Ruby was extremely conflicted.

* * *

When she got home from school, she dropped her keys on the counter and hummed to herself as she heated leftovers. The Sullivan's had a large house for four people, her father and mother worked a lot, they were 'workaholics' as the family therapist had once put it. Charlie had soccer practice until five, and then Ruby had to go pick him up, she would make them both dinner and then tuck him in at eight. Their parents got home at around nine or ten. Ruby spent a lot of time alone.

At times this was alright, being alone allowed her to think. To sort out her feelings, to decide on things, catch up on her reading. But when she was being stalked by a supernatural psychopath that was out to kill her, solidarity was quite nerve wracking.

Every time a branch would scrape the window, or there was a shadow that resembled a person, even her own, she jumped. She didn't know how long she could keep this up, Pitch Black would be sure to find her at one point, and then what? Would she be dead like Derek? What about Jack? If what Pitch told her was true, Jack and the Guardians would be nonexistent.

She bit her lip; she didn't want to be responsible for something like that. Part of Ruby was regretful that she had met Jack, if she hadn't, maybe they wouldn't have developed feelings for each other, and then the threat of never-ending darkness wouldn't be a problem. But a larger part of Ruby didn't see the horribleness of the situation, and didn't care. The bigger part of Ruby just wanted to be with Jack, to see his smile every day, to feel his arms around her and to be the light in his eyes was more than she had ever wanted, and now that she had had a taste of what these things were like, they were the only things on her mind. She didn't want to let go of them.

Ruby scraped the bits of food left on her plate into the trash and put the plate in the dishwasher. She needed a distraction; she couldn't be dwindling on this. She needed it out of her mind. Ruby padded upstairs to her room and took the camera off her bed.

Ruby's room was much like her loft in their cabin, only it was quite bigger and darker. The ceiling was at least fifteen feet high and the walls were painted a tacky baby blue that Ruby cringed at, so she covered most of the wall with her pictures. There were three small windows that were virtually useless that were close to her ceiling and then two larger windows; she had kept the blinds shut since she had gotten back.

She threw her backpack towards her desk and put some books out so it looked as if she had done some work, in case her parents checked tonight, and grabbed her camera off her nightstand.

The lot next to the Sullivan's house was empty, and for some reason, the family owned it. Ruby knew at one point her parents wanted to expand their pool and create a cabana, but it seemed now that after five years the dream had dried up. Now they just owned an empty lot that teenagers went to hook up in.

But only Ruby could truly see the whimsy of the empty lot. The grass was overgrown and unkempt, and there were wildflowers sprouting among the small groups of clovers. The ground there was soft and damp, and everything was so, so green. Oak trees reached the sky and shaded the lot with their thick branches, only letting small rays of sunlight leak through and hit the ground. Whenever Ruby went, she always felt better. It made her feel like she was in Lord of the Rings, or in the Forbidden Forest of Hogwarts during the daytime, she didn't feel burdened by her outside worries.

She snapped a couple of pictures before looking up and looking at the sunlight, there was a familiar head of white hair squinting at a crumpled piece of paper in an oak tree, he obviously hadn't noticed her yet either.

"Jack!" Ruby called excitedly.

He looked up from the paper and widened his eyes at her, "Ruby!" he cried.

He jumped down from the ten foot branch with ease and she ran towards him with open arms, he enveloped her in a hug and spun her. She nuzzled her head into his neck and giggled with happiness. "I can't believe you found me," she whispered.

"Me neither." He admitted putting her down, "Your directions were ridiculously bad."

She scoffed, "Well _excuse_ me, maybe I shouldn't have left any directions at all?"

Jack furrowed his eyebrows and picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, she screamed and laughed for him to release her, but he was grinning too widely to do such a thing.

"Hey," she said finally. "You do realize my face is in your butt."

Jack's face was red, but she couldn't see it anyway. "The view must be nice, you're welcome."

Ruby laughed and slapped his shoulder softly, "Stop! Seriously, put me down."

He sighed, "Fine, we need to be serious for a second anyway."

"Ooh," Ruby sat down on the soft ground; she could feel it sinking beneath her. "Serious."

"Right," he sat down too. "So I talked to the others, and they'll help."

Ruby grinned, "That's grea-"

He stopped her, "They'll help keep you alive and away from Pitch, that's all we can do."

Ruby's smiled dropped, "What do you mean?"

"Well," Jack tried to recite what North had told him. "There's this thing called a bond and a Guardian bonds to a huma-"

"Oh, Pitch Black told me about that." Ruby nodded.

Jack blinked, "He- er, what?"

"Uh, so you know how its common protocol for villains to tell the hostage their plan before they kill the hostage? Like in movies and TV shows that always happens."

Jack blinked a couple more times.

"Oh, right. Of course you don't." Ruby laughed, "Well he pretty much told me his plan on how he was going to bring down the guardians. It involved killing me, but it was weird, he was choking me, about to kill me, and then he just… didn't. I don't know why he did it though…"

"Wait wait, why didn't you tell me this before?" Jack asked.

Ruby wiped her nose and sniffed, "It didn't exactly come up and I just thought you already knew that he was trying to kill you guys."

Jack sighed, the sun was beating down on his back and he was sweating. "So how did he know about turning? Did he tell you that?"

Ruby laughed, "Did you know he was a former guardian?" Jack froze. "Apparently when he was 'bonded' he like actually fell in love with the partner and then when she died, he kind of died too… that's the best way I can put it. His soul died, that's put better." She looked up at Jack, who was shaking intensely. "Are you alright, you're a lot paler than usual."

Jack shook his head and Ruby leaned forward and placed the soft back of her hand against his forehead.

"Shit." She whispered. "You have a really bad fever, come on; you can come home with me. Can you make it back?"

Jack nodded, still shaking; he wasn't going to tell Ruby that one day, he may end up like Pitch.

* * *

Jack woke up in a room with blue walls covered in pictures, the room was lit by a large lamp on the nightstand, and it the air conditioner and fan were keeping it a cool forty degrees.

Ruby was sitting at her desk in sweatpants and a sweatshirt; she yawned and scratched her head. Ruby's long brown hair fell against the back of the chair every time she leaned her head back.

"Are your parents alright with you keeping the air conditioning this low?" he asked.

Ruby's head snapped up and she turned to look at him, her eyes softened. "You're up." She noted. "Oh- probably not, but they can afford it, and I like forty degrees better than eighty."

Jack hopped out of bed and stood on his feet warily, he tried to balance himself. "What happened?" he asked grabbing the corner of the nightstand for support.

"I don't know," Ruby admitted. "I guess you aren't supposed to get that hot. As soon as you made it upstairs you passed out and I had to get you into bed, it took me like, forty five minutes." She laughed.

Jack wondered what the highest temperature he could be at was, "Wait so you just assumed it had to do with temperature?"

Ruby nodded, "I took your temperature and it was 109.3 degrees, humans are supposed to be hospitalized at 107 degrees you know, so I'm no doctor and I didn't really know what to do so I just thought about lowering your temperature, and it worked."

Jack's vision returned from its fuzzy state and his legs regained their orientation, "How long was I asleep?"

Ruby looked at the clock on her nightstand, "Its nine o'clock now and I found you outside at four." She raised her eyebrows, "So like five hours."

Jack exhaled, he was annoyed with himself. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine," Ruby laughed. "I had a lot of stuff to do any you would've distracted me. I almost forgot to pick up Charlie from soccer practice." She admitted lightly.

"Ruby," Jack started. He didn't know what to say, how would he tell her about the bond? Did she have the mark? What would she say about the new guardian?

"Hello? You okay?" Ruby waved her hand in front of his face and Jack snapped back.

"Yeah, sorry, can I see your neck?" he said quickly.

Ruby raised an eyebrow, "Um? Should I be worried?"

Jack slapped his hand to his face and sighed, "I'm sorry, that sounded weird."

"Yeah," Ruby laughed.

"What I meant to say was can I please see your neck?"

"That doesn't sound much better," Ruby laughed.

Jack made a face, "Did Pitch tell you what signifies a bond? Like how you can tell who is your significant other?"

"He said something about some sort of birthmark but I don't have any…" Ruby trailed off and rolled up her sleeves, checking her arms for any sort of marking.

"Matching birthmarks," Jack elaborated. "Mines on my neck, it's a star."

"You think we're…?" Ruby pointed a finger between the two of them, "Like, soul mates or whatever?"

Jack shrugged, "I don't know," he admitted. "Do you want to be…?"

Ruby raised her eyebrows and laughed, "You're cute." His eyes met hers and she blushed, obviously not meaning to have said that. "I thought I said that in my head." She admitted.

He kissed her. Just the barest brush of his lips against hers, nothing crazy. Even in that moment, he deconstructed the kiss: her possible reactions to, the way it made a shudder tighten his skin, the seconds between when he touched her lips and when she opened her eyes.

Ruby smiled at him. Her words were taunting, but her voice was gentle. "Is that all you've got?" Jack touched his lips to hers again, and this time it was very different. It was a whiles' worth of kissing, her lips coming to life under his, tasting of peppermint like usual. Her fingers ran through his hair before linking around his neck, alive and warm on his cool skin.

She let go and looked at him like they were sharing a joke, she pressed her lips together as though she were keeping his kiss inside her.

"Even if we don't have matching birthmarks or whatever," she spoke finally. "I really like you."

Jack didn't know what kind of feeling he had expected when he dreamt of Ruby saying those exact words, and now that she had, all his heart could do was swell. Swell with love, and need to press his lips against hers, and feel her skin against his and hear the sound of her laugh and voice and see her smile. It was like hearing, actually, Jack couldn't think of anything better to hear.

"I really like you too." He exhaled with the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "A lot."

"I think that's what really means," Ruby pointed out with a small laugh.

Jack reached out and pulled back the hood of her sweatshirt, he could see the soft skin of her neck, pale and kissable, without a single mark.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing." He confirmed letting go of the hood, what did this mean? He wouldn't turn?

"But then who's your actual bond with?" Ruby asked, "What does this mean?"

"I don't know," Jack admitted sitting down on the bed. "We should go ask the others."

"Together?" Ruby stopped, "As in, I'm going with you?"

Jack nodded, "I have to keep an eye on you, in case Pitch comes back, plus there's a new Guardian and I have to go to the ceremony, boring work stuff." He waved his hand as if batting it away, he wasn't focused at all. There were thousands of unanswered questions still floating around in his head.

Ruby crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, "I forgot, you're lazy." She padded over and sat next to him on the bed

"_Irresponsible_." He corrected for the third time, "_There is a difference._"

She crawled under her sheets and flicked off the lights, she patted the place next to her. "Come."

Jack lied next to her, her back was against his stomach, Jack extended an arm around her. "I just want you to know even if there is someone else, I don't think I could like anyone as much as I like you." He admitted.

"Touching," Ruby yawned and snuggled into him. She had taken it lightly when he had meant it sincerely.

Jack lied his head against the nape of her neck and waited to hear her breaths become steady and rhythmic, he fell asleep to the beat of their hearts in sync.

* * *

**What does this mean? No bond? But who? Any guesses? Who is the new Guardian? Where is this story going? Leave me a review of what you think! I'll update ASAP! Thanks a bunch for Following, Favorite-ing, Reading, and Reviewing!**

**(If you review, you're uber sexy ;D)**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: It's super short and bad and so obvious but I just feel like I owe you all. I'll post something better and longer tomorrow, or I will try at least. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUESTS OR IDEAS, I AM TOTALLY UP FOR THEM AND/OR WILL INCORPORATE THEM INTO THE STORY.**

* * *

"Okay, backtrack; say exactly what Pitch told you." Bunnymund demanded for the fourth time.

Ruby and Jack groaned simultaneously, "C'mon Bunny, she's told us already,"

"I'm just trying to be prudent," he narrowed his eyes. "I seem to be the only one."

Jack raised his eyebrows as if challenging him and took a step in front of Ruby.

"You know what," North intervened, "I am up to here with both of you." North raised a hand high above his head. "Come 'ere, both of you." North took Jack by the hood of his sweatshirt and Bunnymund by the scruff of his neck and threw them into his office. "Come out when you two are grown up." He pulled out a brass key from his shirt pocket and locked the door, Bunnymund and Jack pounded on the door and protested, but North and the rest of the Guardians ignored them.

"Kids," Tooth shook her head and laughed airily.

Ruby laughed politely and nodded awkwardly.

"So you aren't the one, eh?" North turned to face her.

Suddenly felt very small under their gaze. She was the only one in the room who was vulnerable in reality, she was the only human. On their way Jack had promised her that he would make sure they didn't do anything to her, and kept his fingers intertwined with hers for a majority of the meeting. Up until Bunnymund inquired about Pitch for the third time, and then Jack began bickering with him. The other's just looked on as if this were inevitable and common. Ruby found herself wanting to laugh several times during their conversation; she would have to train Jack to come up with better comebacks.

"Uh, no… guess not." Ruby shrugged. She wasn't that mad about the bond, she was skeptical about it in the first place. If she was merely put on earth to be a distraction to Jack, she didn't want to be a part of it at all. But then again, this meant that someone out there had a piece in Jack's heart that Ruby may not be able to grasp, and he could leave her.

"This could be for the better!" Tooth smiled, "Jack may not change now, you know when you er…"

North cleared his throat, "Alright Tooth, thank you." He smiled at Ruby sympathetically. "Do you have any idea who the bond may be?"

"No," Ruby said immediately. "I mean, I could check around at school for people with star birthmarks on their necks but really what are the odds-"

"You're right." North sighed. "Did Pitch happen to tell you anything about attacking the new Guardian too?"

"I don't think he knows there's going to be a new Guardian."

The three Guardians sighed in relief, "That's always good." Tooth nodded with Sandy.

"I have a question though," Ruby said a bit quietly.

They turned to her in rapt attention and suddenly she felt a bit more conscious, "If Pitch finds the person Jack is actually bonded to and kills them, don't you think that will end badly for Jack? Like, if they have a bond to him, they share a connection, so it should affect him, shouldn't it?"

The Guardians looked a bit shocked. North rubbed the back of his neck and scratched his beard, "She's right."

Tooth nodded, "When our bonds died we could feel it, I remember feeling bad a couple of months after."

Sandy nodded and a broken heart appeared above his head.

"I suppose she could be right." He paused, "But I don't think if Jack didn't have any direct contact with the bond anything could happen."

"But if Pitch finds the bond, he will no doubt lure you guys over," Ruby started, "And you have to protect people so you'll have to go and then Jack will have direct contact."

"We're only supposed to protect children." North corrected.

"And you think Jack is bonded to a 50 year old woman going through a midlife crisis?" Ruby crossed her arms over her chest.

North exhaled, "Fine. You're right. Finding the bond should take priority, finding Pitch is relatively important too, Jack told us where he found you but that place is long gone by now. Pitch wouldn't stay where he knows he can be found."

The shouting in the office died down to a small talking and North took this as the time to let them back in. "Bunny, go get the boy now." He told him as they exited.

Jack walked over to where Ruby was and placed a hand on the small of her back protectively. Ruby felt a blush creeping on to her face and tried to make it go away.

"'Aye, I'll be back soon." Bunnymund tapped the ground and the floor opened up, he jumped down the hole and disappeared from sight.

"Is he going to get the new Guardian?" Jack asked.

"Yeah!" Tooth said excitedly, "I heard it's another-"

"You two, now is not the time." North intervened. "Jack, Ruby has a theory that you may have to find the bond before Pitch. If Pitch does get to the bond before us, it could result in you turning. Maybe." He added. "We aren't entirely sure, it's a theory, but a very valid-"

"You think I should find the bond?" Jack turned to Ruby, looking a bit hurt.

"Well… yes. But it's for the well-being of everyone, I don't want you to like someone else of course but-"

"Are you breaking up with me?" he asked.

Ruby let her arms fall to her sides and she looked at him as if he were crazy, "What? Are you dumb?"

"So you're not?"

"I actually can't even tell if you're joking or not." Ruby's shoulders shook with laughter.

"I thought that's how it worked!" Jack said innocently, "That's how relationships work right?" he turned to the other Guardians who were pretending to be extremely interested in the patterns on the floor.

"Oh my god you're such an idiot!" Ruby held massaged her temples, still laughing. "Ok look, I didn't even know we were 'together' I don't know how that works for you. But anyway, even if we were, no I am not breaking up with you. I'm telling you you have to go find your bond before Pitch gets them because then you'll have to go save them and you'll grow close to them only to see them killed, if he's successful. And then you'll turn and you know what happens after that, mass destruction, world will be surrounded in darkness etcetera." She finished.

The other Guardians looked extremely uncomfortable.

A portal opened up in the middle of the workshop, startling Ruby. She jumped and Jack steadied her. A boy stepped through, around Ruby's age, maybe older. He was wearing a black shirt that was tight and clung to his abs and biceps and black pants. His hair was a fiery auburn and looked shaggy and badly cut, his face was handsome and rugged. All of his features were very pronounced and sharp. On his left arm was a giant tattoo of a dragon spitting out fire, covering his whole upper arm.

"What the fuck is this place." He looked around and wrung out his hands. "This looks like that queer place at the mall where kids make stuffed animals."

_Build-a-bear_. Ruby thought. She suddenly felt childish for getting excited whenever she got to go with Charlie and make a bear. Maybe this place did have similarities to it.

"Hey," his shockingly yellow eyes looked over to Ruby. Sharp and unfriendly, "I know you."

A giant lump formed in Ruby's throat, it wasn't him, but it had to be. It was the same face, same tattoo, same body. There was no ponytail, and he looked slimmer. His hair had changed from its ashy black to auburn, he looked more rash and he had look of fire in his now yellow eyes; before they had been dark brown. It was _him_. It was Derek.

"No." Ruby whispered. "You're supposed to be dead."

Jack looked from Ruby to Derek, obviously confused. And then it struck him, "Derek."

"You must be the new Guardian." North tried to break the tension he was unaware of.

Derek's eyes finally shined as he realized who Ruby was, "Sully." He laughed somewhat evilly and stuffed his hands in his pant pockets. "I'm back to haunt you from the dead." He smirked.

* * *

**TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK, IT WAS SO OBVIOUS WASN'T IT?! HAHAHA Ok sorry I'm in a weird mood. Please Review! Tell me if you want anything to happen or tell me what you think is going to happen! A lot of reviews have given me ideas, I'm also totally up for constructive criticism and predictions. Thanks so much for continued support!**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I'm so sorry guys, this is long overdue. I should pick back up again, I promise. This is really bad, I promise something good is in store soon. I promise. I promise. I promise. Don't give up on this story, we're just getting started (malicious smile)**

* * *

Jack's grip was firm around Ruby's wrist as they traveled back to her home.

"What the hell was that!?" he finally asked, breaking the tension as she sat down on her bed.

She tugged at her dark brown hair, combing it out with her fingers. She looked at him with a shocked expression, "You tell me."

This could mean a series of things. First of all, Derek was bound to have a bond too. The Guardians said that it could be at any time in any century or millennium that they were alive. But what if Derek's was early? What if Derek's was Ruby? Second of all, the Guardians would be bound to figure out the complications of Jack Frost staying in Florida, and urge him to let Derek handle it seeing he could deal with warmer temperatures. Something Jack was not comfortable with. "If I have to leave and let Derek take care of you for a little while…" Jack broke his own thoughts, "What do you think would happen?"

Ruby pushed herself higher onto her bed. "Well I don't know how much Charlie told you, but me and Derek didn't have the best of relationships."

"He told me enough," Jack said, balling his fists.

"I- It was just to spite my parents at first- and Derek knew I was using him, he was using me too. He was that douchebag that everyone looked up to because for some reason when you're older and you bang freshman girls you're pretty much king of the world, high school is weird. But I thought I could handle him, I thought I had everything under control, but then-"

"Stop, it's alright." Jack walked over and sat down next to her, squeezing her hand and wiping away the tears that she wasn't aware had begun to stream down her cheeks in rivers. "We'll figure this out."

"Why did it have to be him?!" she cried. "The statistical probability of something like this happening is so low, and yet it did. It's him, it's my worst nightmare!"

"What about Pitch?"

"Oh don't even remind me of that." Ruby fisted her comforter, punching and balling it up.

Jack put his head in his hands and ruffled his snow white hair. "I'm so sorry, Ruby. This is all my fau-"

"Don't you dare say it's your fault." She muttered. "I'm up to here with excuses." She raised her hand far above her head. "We've gotten this far along together, we're gonna make the stretch. You and me." She sniffed and gave a half-hearted smile as she reached to touch his face.

Jack put a hand over her hand on his face and brought it down to his lap, interlacing their fingers together. "You're right." He said finally. "We can do this."

"Can we devise a plan for this tomorrow or something? Its eleven thirty and I have school tomor-"her sentence was cut off with a yawn. "-row."

Jack nodded. "I'm gonna have to go back to the guardians for a couple hours to work some stuff out. I'm sure you'll be okay. Just lock the windows and don't think about Pitch."

"I'm too tired to think about anything." Ruby interjected, pulling back her sheets. She took off her sweatshirt and socks and snuggled into bed. "Can you turn off the light before you leave?"

Jack heard her sniffle again as he flipped the light switch off. He made his way back to the window above her bed, "I guess I'll see you as soon as I can." He crouched down and stroked her silky hair.

Ruby's head turned and she stared at him for a long while. "I'll miss you."

He leaned down and kissed her, hard and long. She brought a warm hand up to his face and traced his jawline, drawing pictures of hearts and stars and squares and other basic shapes that she could think of while her brain turned to mush under the spell of his kisses.

They broke away; Ruby stared at him with sleepy eyes before letting her head fall back onto the pillow.

Jack opened the window and began to climb through it, hitting a poster hanging on her wall with his foot. It swung, stuck to the wall with a blue tack. "Sorry," he muttered. Ruby let out a quiet, airy laugh.

"Bye Jack," he heard her say quietly.

"Bye Ruby," he answered. "I love you." He said without revising the words in his head.

* * *

Jack, stunned and anxious returned to the Pole. They were all still there, gathered and talking in low voices.

"What's wrong Jack?" Tooth said when she looked up.

"Looks like the lads seen a monster," Bunny pushed through to get a good look at him.

"This is the guy?" Derek motioned to Jack, the question directed to Santa.

North looked quizzically at Jack, "He isn't normally like this."

"I-I may have just made a horrible mistake." Jack said worriedly, brushing his fingers through his hair frantically. He had said it too early. She didn't feel the same way. She hadn't reacted at all. She was probably weirded out by the fact that he had said something like that. She probably thought he didn't even know what love was. Truthfully, he didn't. But Jack didn't think that there was any other way to explain the way he felt about Ruby.

The guardians looked at each other confusedly, "You said the L-word didn't you," Derek spoke up.

They all turned to look at him, including Jack.

He sighed. "You never, ever tell a girl you love her. Even if it's true. There's not enough justification there for them, then the questions are always 'You're not serious, really? What do you love about me? Is it my hair? You only love me for my boobs!'" Derek mimicked a high-pitched girl voice. "It's all the same, bag the girl and be done with it. Move on and forget about it. You have powers right? Just like freeze her and be done with it."

Jack's eyes were swept over with emotion and anger all at once, he launched at Derek. He landed a blow on his face immediately and blood began to gush from his nose. Jack clawed at his throat, punched his jaw, his stomach, pulled his hair out, but Derek was an even match. He flipped Jack over and fought back, landing a blow on his eye. Jack blinked, stunned. And then a pair of giant hands picked them up and threw them back.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Derek shouted at Jack.

"You're talking about Ruby and I care about her, she's gone through enough shit with you!" Jack shouted back.

"As if I ever told that little slut I loved her. No one loves Sully. Sully is just a little distraction for guys, nothing special."

Jack launched at Derek again, this time with icicles. North managed to draw them back again from each other.

"Never talk about Ruby like that again!" Jack bellowed. "Or else I'll personally kill you!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Derek laughed, clutching his bruised stomach and wiping the blood from his nose on his now bloody arm. "You don't see it, but there's a reason Ruby's going for a little vanilla like you."

Jack flared his nostrils.

"She's done being a risk-taker; she's had her way with all those guys. She wants out. She doesn't want to be a risk taker anymore, and you're no risk, you're just a fucking-"

"Hey- HEY!" North shouted. "None of us know what either of you are going through or talking about but enough is enough, you-"he pointed to Derek, "Need to work on that language if you're going to be handling kids. And you-"his finger made a 90 degree turn to Jack, "Need to figure yourself out. We all know you can't spend more than two hours in that equator sun, trust me, it's one of the reasons I do my work by night. So we're gonna have to keep Derek there, I know, this seems like a dumb move after… you know…. This-"he motioned to Derek, still holding the blood from escaping his nose and Jack, rubbing his bruising eye. "But it's all we have, and she needs to stay safe, no matter anyone's opinions of her. Is that clear?" the boys nodded.

"I feel like I'm at a preschool." Tooth whispered to Sandy, whose eyes were still wide and analyzing the situation.

"If you hurt her in any way," Jack turned to Derek, who was lazily playing with the flames erupting from his fingertips like struck matches. "You'll be the first one I kill when I turn."

* * *

Ruby had a dream that Jack had told her he loved her. And she got so choked up and her heart had gotten so heavy she had forgotten to answer him. But the answer was clear and evident that she could say the same.

She was hardly able to get to school, he was clouding her mind with thoughts of how much easier it could be if he was just a human boy. Or if she were just an immortal guardian. Her mind wandered to questions of her future, if they did succeed in avoiding Pitch for long enough, if they did find Jack's true bond. That she had almost failed to notice something strange on the back of Claire Davis' neck.

Was it a tattoo? Ruby knew Claire's parents as strict and devout parents who wouldn't allow something like that, but still managed to let the fact that their daughter was a bitch slide under their noses.

Ruby leaned closer; it was a tattoo, or maybe a birthmark of some sort. And upon further inspection Ruby finally understood. This truly was a nightmare, and fate sure wasn't doing her any favors lately.

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW FOLLOW AND FAVORITE, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: *dodges angry pitchforks being thrown at her* I'M SOORRRYYYYYYYY Ugh, I've been having such a bad writer's block and I also kind of forgot that I owned a fanficiton and school has been cruel (rhymes. I should be a rapper) and ugh run on sentences cry cry cry cry cry cry**

**But I digress**

**I'm sure you don't really care about what's up with me, frankly I don't care all that much either. So on with the story. Hehehe super juicy**

* * *

Ruby had been watching Claire for a couple of weeks now; her actions, her attitude, her way with men. Nothing really seemed to add up. Jack could have been bonded to anyone in the whole wide world at any point in time and it really had to be Claire Davis.

So she was pretty. But how much did that count for when she had the personality of a reality TV star and the entourage to match. Ruby would have to corner her at one point, and she was running out of time.

Jack had come every couple of days to visit her. He'd shoo off Derek and then watch her while Derek went off and indulged in things Guardians of children probably shouldn't. They'd talk for hours, filling up all the time they'd miss together.

Ruby would complain about her school. How ridiculous some of the teachers could be, and how the curriculum was worth blowing her brains out, and how the kids were so nasty and idiotic all at the same time. Sometimes they were arrogant too; Ruby called those kids triple threats.

Jack would just nod and smile. He would watch the way her nose crinkled when she mentioned precalculus, and the way her mouth formed harsh words about Mrs. Windham, her World Religions teacher, and then how her eyebrows would fly up when she mimicked her reactions to a classmate's dumb remark. Jack believed Ruby was too smart for him. She was too smart for anyone.

And then he'd complain about not being able to see her, and then there was that ongoing problem where he was always cold. But she'd smile and laugh at all his stories. Urging him to go on; and then pleading that he'd one day take her to all the places he'd been in his eternal life.

She still hadn't mentioned her findings to him yet. She didn't know what that meant, or where it put them. The Guardians could pounce, and collect her, bring her into the magical world that Ruby was just starting to be a part of. Ruby was being a bit selfish, if not jealous, of her situation.

"I don't think John Lennon's death ever really sunk in for me." Ruby said one day, sitting on her bed.

Jack nodded, giving her an empathetic smile. "You could use that as an excuse to go to class late."

He had already picked up on her interests. "You're brilliant. No wonder I still let you hang around," she giggled, watching the corners of his mouth turn up. "I mean, it's still kind of creepy that you keep following me around…"

He laughed. "If it bothers you so much I'll just leave." He said in all seriousness, shocking her for a moment.

Ruby opened her mouth in shock, but then laughed and pounced at him, engulfing him in a hug and nuzzling her head into his neck. "It's the best part of my week." She admitted.

"What is?" he asked quizzically, rubbing circles into her back.

Her breath was hot on his neck, he could feel the soft skin of her face brush up against his, sending every nerve in his body haywire. Her heartbeat set a tempo for him in his ear. "When you're with me, of course." She said it like if she were answering the question, what's two plus two?

He kissed the crown of her head softly, her eyes fluttered closed and he felt her eyelashes tickle his jaw with every blink. "It's mine too, maybe even my life… is that a stretch?" he asked.

"Uh… yeah," she laughed, looking up at him with her electric blue eyes. "You've practically seen the whole world and you just said I'm the biggest highlight. That's lame. I say your biggest highlight is Switzerland, you've been there, right? Charlie had to do a project on it and I helped him print out pictures, it's so pretty…" she sighed longingly.

"You're prettier." He decided.

"Oh yeah because you can compare the beauty of a landscape to that of a person," she rolled her eyes with sarcasm. "You're full of it."

He squeezed her sides and she yelped, laughing. She was so ticklish. "Hey, you can't decide what I think is the best, I'm entitled to an opinion."

She wiggled away from his grasp and caught her breath, narrowing her eyes at him. "No you're not. I say you're not."

"Fine." He grinned.

She laughed again, addictively, and laid back on her bed.

She still referred back to her dream a lot, the one where he had told her he loved her. It sent shivers down her spine at the thought of it. When someone like your parents or a family member tells you they love you, you think it's obliged. You regurgitate the words without a second thought. But this love was different. It wasn't obligatory, or expected, or bland. It was like falling down a mountain with full force, blindfolded and stripped down to your undergarments, and liking it.

"Jack, there's something I need to tell you," she began. He rolled on his side and rested his head on his elbow, his one of his rosy cheeks bunching up in his palm and making Ruby yearn to lean in and kiss it. "I think I know who your bond is."

His expression didn't change at first. His blue roved over her face, staring at the uneven division of small, faint, freckles on her cheeks (there were more on the left cheek, he decided) and watching her pupils dilate under the shadow of her thick eyelashes. But then his eyes softened, he looked at her with an unexplained disappointment, and the first word that his vocal chords uttered was, "Oh."

She nodded and gulped, noticing his eyes casting down to trace the pattern of her comforter instead of paying attention. "And I- I think I might've know for a while, but was just being selfish."

He looked up, blue eyes on blue eyes, the hair on her arms bristled from his gaze. He cocked his head to the side, "How is that selfish?"

It was her turn to avert her gaze, "This sounds kind of stupid, but I kind of want you to myself."

"You do," he laughed, reaching out and brushing a strand of chocolate brown hair out of her face, "But this other person is in danger without being aware of it. And it's unfair for them to get hurt about something they can't help."

"It's Claire Davis," she deadpanned; her eyes became bored and dark.

"That girl that you always complain about that brought her dog to church in third grade?" Jack asked, recalling the story from when Ruby had compiled a list of her 100 least favorite people. Claire hovered around the 30's, close to Adam Sandler (Ruby had no idea why he irked her so much) and Kim Kardashian (self-explanatory, but Jack had had to been given a lesson on the beauty of reality television and was now fully educated on the family, even if he didn't want to be).

She nodded, "She has the same mark as you on her neck." Ruby tapped the nape of her neck for emphasis, "It's even tinted blue like yours." She remarked, leaning forward and pushing his head down to examine the star shaped mark. "Huh."

"What?"

"I remember it being darker last time you showed it to me." She said somewhat distantly.

He shrugged and looked back up at her. "You know what this means though," Jack hesitated slightly, about to cringe at his own words. "We need to tell her."

Ruby's face twisted up a bit, "You know, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if Pitch got to her- I mean, yeah it'd be pretty bad… but like… maybe it could benefit the world in the long run?" She offered.

Jack quirked an eyebrow amusedly, "C'mon she can't be _that_ bad."

"A Satan reincarnate," Ruby continued without noticing. "The world can do without them, especially when they take the form of a pretentious teenage girl."

"You're really insane," he laughed. "How about this, you tell her, and I'll tell everyone else, all the guardians, Derek included."

Ruby went silent, contemplating the offer.

She and Jack hadn't really talked that much about Derek and his shenanigans. His job most of the time was to make sure Pitch wasn't trying to kidnap Ruby, which was significantly easier when she was in a public place in the daylight. So he spent most of his time starting controlled forest fires (they were considered natural and healthy for the environment) and trying to get kids to believe in him (the frustration of only having his ex-girlfriend (who he really had no regards for) could see him) it put a bit of a bruise on the ego. But nonetheless, Ruby and Derek's interaction were basically nonexistent. When they did have to cross paths, though, the conversation was short, awkward, and tense. He didn't make slurs about her or bully her as he used to (mostly because Jack and North's threats had shaken him, but Ruby didn't know that). Derek's mind was elsewhere, worrying about his mother and sister and friends, who had returned to life in its former state, he felt as if he'd never existed.

"Deal." She reached over and slid her hand down his bare arm (Jack was restricted to t-shirts to keep himself cool), when their fingers met, they intertwined.

Jack sighed, tucking his head into her shoulder. Ruby's other hand ran through his snowy hair, he wanted to moan with pleasure, but something was eating at him. "This means that it's coming soon." He mumbled into her shoulder, taking in her scent, rain, just like always.

"What?"

"Pitch is sure to attack soon." He sighed again.

Ruby continued running her gentle fingers through his hair, "We'll be ready." She promised.

He hoped she was right.

* * *

"Hey uh, Claire, um, can I-"

"I need to talk to you after class," Ruby pushed a scrawny boy with square glasses away from Claire's desk. He scowled, but when Ruby narrowed her eyes at him, he made a beeline for the door.

Claire lowered the nail file from her fingernails, admiring her work. "Why would I talk to you?" she asked as if it were the dumbest question capable of being asked. She didn't even flick her eyes up to look at who was speaking.

"Well for one, you owe me for that kid…" Ruby trailed off; searching for the acne ridden boy she had scared off.

"Proof or it didn't happen." Claire shrugged mock-empathetically, "I have no business with you."

"I can bribe you!" Ruby lowered her voice, "I-"

"No Ruby, I know you'll have sex with anyone to get what you want, but refuse to be-" Claire said loudly until Ruby clasped a hand over her mouth quickly. Several people looked over and narrowed their eyes at the unusual pair talking.

"Ugh, fuck you." Ruby spluttered. "I was just going to say that my mom bought me this new nail polish that's supposed to only be available in Paris, I'll give it to you if you just hear me out."

Claire gasped and uttered what Ruby deciphered to be French, "I just _have_ to have it! They were supposed to be sold out! I already checked online!"

At this point she could've been talking to herself, Ruby was pretty sure she had grown to talking to a crowd; mainly of girls trying to catch the queen bee's main interests to climb the social ladder.

"Uh… yeah, whatever, you have to hear me out, though. If you walk out you don't get that croissant nail polish or whatever the heck-"

Claire corrected her with the long French word again, scoffing at Ruby's lack of interest in nail lacquer.

Class seemed to go by at the speed of a snail with a large weight on its back, Mrs. Windham droned on about Islamic culture and religious influence while Ruby drew three dimensional cubes and hearts in the margins of her notes, her eyes glued to the clock above the whiteboard.

When the bell rang, Claire whipped around at an alarming speed, making Ruby jump in surprise. When her curls stopped bouncing, Claire said, "Alright, on with it."

"I need you to meet me back at school at six. On the field." She added quickly, trying to sound the least weird she could. Apparently, her efforts weren't persistent enough.

Claire gave her a strange look and opened her mouth to say something cheeky, there was no doubt, until Ruby blurted about the nail polish again and Claire shut up; nodding her head and promising her attendance.

* * *

"So is this the last thing I'm going to see before you kill me and throw me into the woods?" Claire asked, looking Ruby over, openly disgusted by her lack of fashion. "You should've at least put in _some_ effort."

Jack looked at Ruby sympathetically and she rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

"My god, you're talking to yourself aren't you," Claire continued to criticize her.

"Geez, was she always this bitchy?" Ruby heard Derek mumble under his breath faintly.

"Okay, look." Ruby began, still not sure how she was going to explain this all without being sent to a mental institution. "You believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny when you were little, right?"

Claire raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest, "You _dragged _me here to ask me _that_?" She was dumbfounded; she couldn't even come up with a remark.

"Just answer me." Ruby internally pleaded that Claire wouldn't mock her and make her the school laughingstock, _again_.

"I guess so," she shrugged, uninterested.

"Well, what if I told you that they _are_ real?" Ruby asked, waiting for Claire's face to register with confusion.

Instead, she kept a completely straight face. "I'm going home." She announced, turning a heel and beginning to walk towards the parking lot of the school.

"Hey!" Ruby called after her, "No baguette nail polish if you don't cooperate!"

Claire stopped in her tracks and turned around, gritting a sarcastic smile. "You're so fucking annoying. My god, just hurry and I'll try to tune you out."

When Ruby finished the entire story, Claire looked more concerned than confused or dumbfounded. "I believe you like, five percent." She decided. "It's pretty impressive to make up a story like that," she tapped her chin with her fingernail. "Yet at the same time is so farfetched and untrue, that it's humanely impossible to believe you."

"I can prove it." Ruby blurted, turning to the Derek and Jack, who had been standing and watching her execution of trying not to sound too insane. "I could use your help now." She whispered.

Jack looked up into the sky, at the greying clouds approaching the dusk setting of the sky. Suddenly, small snow flurries began falling from the sky at a rapid pace.

Claire gasped, "Are you doing that?" she reached out to gather a couple of rapid-melting snow flurries in her hand. "Impossible, how?"

"Jack Frost." Ruby explained. "He has white hair, and blue eyes, and can control the snow. Try to imagine him."

Claire mumbled about looking stupid but obliged, she shut her eyes and when she opened them again, she looked at Jack as if a mist had cleared and she was seeing a landscape for the first time in her life.

But the most startling thing was that he was staring at her in the exact same way.

* * *

**A/N: *dodges more angry pitchforks* I'll try to update soon! In the meantime, please tell me what you think!**

**1 Review = 1% motivation to write the next chapter ;)**

**Until then, thank you so much for your continued support!**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, I hope this'll make up for it. I'm kind of tired so I didn't look over it, may or may not be a bust.**

**Hey look! Double digits! This is getting pretty long, god, we're only halfway through! (if my calculations are correct)**

**Btdubs, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS. THEY WERE SO NICE AND I CRIED MYSELF TO SLEEP BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE NICER TO ME ON THE INTERNET THAN IN REAL LIFE. I LOVE YOU ALL.**

**So I really hope you enjoy this chapter, sorry if you don't. I tried.**

* * *

Ruby heard Derek mumble under his breath, "Well that's kind of awkward," when Claire and Jack hadn't stopped staring at each other.

Ruby's mouth twisted into a frown, "Claire… um, you know, Derek is alive too."

Claire broke away from her gaze to blink at Ruby, "Derek… as in… dead Derek?"

"Is that what I'm known as now?" Derek asked monotonously, his voice tinged with annoyance.

"Yeah." Ruby said, answering both their questions. "He became a Guardian too, like Jack." Ruby saw Jack lower his head out of the corner of her eye and step away from Claire slowly, as if she were a dangerous animal about to pounce. "He can control fire like Jack can control snow."

Claire looked around, sparked with interest. "Where is he now?"

"Here" Derek stepped closer to her, even though she couldn't see him.

"He's standing right next to you,"

Claire looked over her shoulder, and jumped. "Holy shit!" she took a step away from Derek, who had crossed his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.

"It's too late for this kind of stuff," He mumbled. "Ruby just tell her about that guy that's trying to kill you so we can go." He huffed.

Claire's eyes widened at the word kill, "Excuse me?"

"Uh, yeah, so since you're bonded to Jack…" Ruby explained, Jack hadn't lifted his head to look at either of them. It was like he wasn't even there. "You're kind of in danger of, um, being killed by Jack's mortal enemy."

Claire scoffed, "And who's that? The abominable snowman? The boogeyman?" she said with mock scared-ness.

Ruby looked down, "Uh, yeah. And don't say his name, be careful."

"Wait you're scared of a giant snowman-?"

"It's the other one…" Ruby mumbled, tiptoeing around the name at all costs.

"Okay, seriously?" Claire sounded very annoyed. She looked over at Derek who was crouched on the ground, pulling up grass. "Is for real?"

"Sadly," he stated, looking at his handful of grass in rapt attention. "I haven't met the guy yet but they're all pretty scared of him so… I don't really know what to think yet."

Ruby threw her head back in frustration, "I don't think I'm getting the point across to you, Claire. This guy will kill us both, and then bring the world to eternal darkness. So what I'm trying to do is help you get aware."

Claire's expression didn't shift into that of one that was very motivated, "Whatever, what do you want me to do, sleep with a nightlight?"

"Derek's gonna be watching over and guarding us, right Derek?" Ruby looked down at him, he was making himself comfortable on the ground, splayed out as if he were about to sleep.

"Yup." He yawned loudly.

"This doesn't make me feel very safe." Claire pointed to the sleeping lump on the ground, "He can't even keep his eyes open for ten minutes."

"Just trust him," Ruby rolled her eyes at his lack of attentiveness in such a serious matter. "He'll come around in the end. Plus really all the protection we need is at night, seeing that we're in public places in the daylight, which is good."

"How long have you been at this?" Claire grumbled. "It's tiring and it's only been ten minutes."

"Just a month or two," Ruby was growing tired herself, but not from Derek or from Pitch. Claire had begun a new era of annoyance, one that couldn't even be on the same caliber as the others. "Just live life like normal, it basically will be."

"Uh, except some fairytale villain is after me now!" Claire threw up her arms in exasperation.

Ruby sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "Look, I don't really have time for this, just, be aware. I have to go."

"But-"Claire began to whine about something again before Ruby cut her off by stomping away towards the parking lot. Jack followed her like a stray dog and Derek stood up and bore holes into her back. The hair on the back of Ruby's neck bristled, she wasn't sure of the feeling she was harvesting right now. Was it jealousy? Fatigue? Indifference? She couldn't place it. But something in her felt greatly uneasy, as if finding Claire might have only made the target much bigger for Pitch's aim.

* * *

"You're quiet." Ruby's obvious statement hung in the stale air around them. Jack twisted his neck to look at her, but she kept staring straight ahead at the road.

A man in a giant black Cadillac cut her off and it took every fiber of Ruby's being not to step on the gas pedal and hit the enormous car's fender.

Jack inhaled and opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but he didn't. He finally looked away from her and at the A/C controls, he twisted the knob back and forth, the vents would blast air and then stop, blast, stop. "I'm sorry." He finally said.

"Stop doing that," Ruby batted his hand away from the controls, when their skin brushed against one another's, it sent a warm feeling down Ruby's back.

"I-"he started again, looking to her as if she could somehow finish his thought. "It's hard to explain."

"I just like the air in the middle, not blasting or still. It's not a big deal." Ruby offered.

Jack fought his mouth to not smile, "You know what I'm talking about."

"So she is the one," she bit her lip, "On the upside, its progress."

"I wish you could experience the feeling of the bond," he began, like it would entail to some sort of compromise. "It's like being told you were adopted but not actually feeling that bad about it, or like being murdered by your best friend and just wanting to pat him on the back and be like, 'oh no hard feelings dude see you tomorrow.'" Ruby laughed at the odd analogy, motivating Jack to go on. "Or being told your favorite love song is about a sandwich."

"So it just feels like… mediocre?" she asked, "But I thought-"

"I don't know." He shook his head, "I just looked at her and it was like I was expected to feel all these things and nothing happened. I think I'm defective."

Ruby giggled, "As a guardian? Hmm… I always did wonder how often they needed someone who controls snow, not a very demanding job in the summer."

"Hey!" he protested, "How would you feel if I wasn't around?"

"Like a person?" she asked, antagonizing him. "Okay, I think we have a problem. We can't talk about a serious topic for over thirty seconds."

"At least you noticed," he mumbled, sitting back in the uncomfortable polyester seat. "But I don't know what she felt,"

"About the bond?" she fixed her eyes back on the road. "The same I guess? She didn't really say anything about you, she kind of ignored you."

"I noticed," he murmured. "She's kind of…"

"A bitch?" Ruby filled in, receiving a nod.

"I'm trained not to say words like that; I'm around kids a lot if you haven't noticed." Jack sighed, sitting up a bit in the seat. "But she is my bond, that's for sure. I did feel something towards her, but it was kind of…" he wracked his brain for a sufficient word. "Neutral?"

"So you just- it wasn't anything?"

"Like I said, it was like I'm _supposed_ to feel something more than just, neutrality, but that's all it was. I'm not very good at explaining."

"I noticed," Ruby scoffed. She drove into her driveway and rested her head on the wheel for a couple of seconds before turning off the lights. "But she's still your bond, which mean's Pitch will still be after her if he finds out."

Jack nodded. "It's best to keep you two safe," he reached out and brushed the back of his hand against her soft cheek.

Ruby leaned in towards him, across the separator and wound a hand in his hair, searching those deep blue eyes for a tell. "I think…" She couldn't finish the thought, he had kissed her.

Her mouth was hard and soft as it slanted against his demandingly, her hands curled around his neck and her mouth moved against his furiously. She accidentally let out a muffled _ngh w_hen his mouth left hers and began burning kisses into her neck. She pulled his head back up, ignoring his alarmed muffle of her name, and her mouth met with his again and the kiss was deeper this time, easier, because she dominated now and reluctance and fear weren't in her vocabulary anymore.

She felt her phone buzzing in her pocket, but ignored it. Jack must've felt it or heard it too, because he broke away and stared at her pocket for a second. "Just forget about it," Ruby urged, silencing whatever he was about to say with another searing kiss.

His hands strayed down to her hips, lingering for a second before roving over stomach and lower back. Ruby let out a purr and moved her hand up his neck to his jaw, tracing it over with small kisses. Jack had to stop himself from making any daunting noises that had rose up in his throat. His hands felt the hem of her shirt; thin, mocking him.

"We should stop."

Ruby drew back and looked at him quizzically, an eyebrow raised.

"I don't want you to get in trouble with your parents," he explained, motioning to the clock on the dashboard with his head. It read April 23, 9:48.

Ruby's eyes widened, "Shit!" She unlocked the door and stumbled out of the car, immediately beginning to perspire from the amount of humidity. "I'll- I'll see you later!" she spluttered, running to the front door and forgetting to close the car's.

Jack sighed and sunk into his seat, he loved this girl. He was sure of it. But something in the back of his head nagged him. This wasn't right. He didn't deserve her, she was amazing. She put up with everything, all he had put her through, and hadn't asked for anything in return. And Jack wanted to give back to her, but what could he offer? His love? Maybe she didn't even want it? Ruby could've had any boy she wanted to, so why would she settle for someone as troublesome as Jack?

She hadn't even said anything about it, so he urged himself to let it go, but the feeling was looming around in his head like a thundercloud.

He needed to tell her how he felt, and this time, he would do it when she wasn't half asleep with half-lidded eyes. He would tell her for real. And he wouldn't run away.

* * *

"I'm almost ready." Pitch promised the dark shadow. "You have to give me more time! Please, my king, find it in your ethereal being to grant me more time!"

The dark shadow hung over Pitch kneeling with narrowed eyes, "Finding that girl…" he began. "They've practically handed their destruction over to you on a silver platter." He murmured.

The figure paced the dark room, "I'm growing anxious with you," he growled. "You don't tend to keep promises." He noted.

"I haven't had the chance to yet!" Pitch cried, "Please give me a couple more months!"

The creature let out a hollow laugh, it echoed through the empty room like ink in water. "I don't have time to wait around for you, Pitch." He turned to look at him, "But I am feeling rather generous these days…"

Pitch's eyes lit up he began spluttering compliments and devotion to the shadow, bowing his head.

"I'll give you until the end of May," the spirit decided. "And I would like to give you a small suggestion about the way you go about this."

"Anything, sire." Pitch raised his head, eyes full of excitement.

* * *

**A/N: Is it hot in here or is it just me? Did that makeout scene suck? I'm indifferent and I need feedback (if you like it then you're welcome *seductive wink*) also, tell me if you want more. I'll try to figure out how the heck to incorporate it into the story. **

**And hey! Looky there, Pitch is almost ready to blow everyone's brains out with full frontal power at his side (which we still have no idea who is).**

**Anyway, I REALLY want to know what you guys think of this chapter since I took a pretty daring step here in my writing (I've never wrote something like that before). Please please PLEASE tell me what you think!**

**THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND REVIEWING AND FOLLOWING AND FAVORITEING AND LIVING AND BREATHING AND I LOVE YOU ALL.**

**Auf Wiedersehen! **

**(that's right. I just looked on how to say goodbye in German so I could put it at the end right here)**


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